The Girl Who Speaks of Sunflowers
by speaks
Summary: The first time the trio neared the ocean together, Mugen told Jin and Fuu in passing that all streams led back to the sea. For some reason they both remembered his words. Maybe this was why not one of the three looked back when they parted ways.
1. The Lion, the Lamb, and the Lesson

(I'm working on some later chapters aaand basically a lot more effort is going into this story than I ever meant it to get, so, long story short I'm going back and editing/lengthening some of these earlier chapters. There is also a new chapter. Thanks)

* * *

The three figures walked as they often had: in silence. Jin's silence was of the ever-indiscernibly contemplative variety, as per usual. Also as usual, Mugen's silence was more of the devil-may-care, couldn't give a shit enough to say anything breed. And then there was Fuu, who had been opening her mouth and taking deep breaths every couple minutes, before closing it again. As usual, it was clear there was something she wanted to say.

However, this time she held her silence. They trudged on through the dirt.

. . .

**The Lion, the Lamb, and the Lesson**

. . .

The unspoken weight that hung over them like a darkened cloud was the impending fork in the road, one that would be both metaphorical and physical. They'd mutually agreed it was time to part ways. There had been no teary goodbyes, not even from Fuu.

Not for the first time, Jin examined Fuu from his place in the rear. He had expected her to cry and yet she hadn't. He feared that perhaps she had used up all her tears on her two companions already. His eyes fell on Mugen, who sauntered with one hand on his sword handle halfway between Jin and Fuu. The rogue pirate had fallen back into his characteristically lax swagger, but it was clear in the way his steps were shorter, more staccato, that he was still harboring a hidden injury. If his subtle limp wasn't enough, Fuu's constant worried glances at his torso gave it away. Every third glance or so her anxious eyes would roam further back toward Jin, then she would flush and look forward when she caught his eye.

They stopped at a brook when they came across it, deciding to take the opportunity for a late lunch. Mugen yanked off his geta and thrust his feet into the water with a disgustingly satisfied sigh.

"Gross, Mugen, you're getting your nasty feet in the drinking water!" These were the first words she'd spoken in hours.

Mugen answered by bending over and dunking his head in the shallow water, then rising with a flourish and shaking off like a wet dog. She screeched her displeasure and he sneered like a madman. As for Jin, he counted himself lucky to be far enough from the water's edge that he escaped involvement. Would this be the last time Jin would witness his two closest friends arguing like children? Interestingly enough, he couldn't imagine it was so.

The road was long ang no one was quite sure how far ahead the fork lay. It could be an hour off still or just around the corner. Because of this the apprehension was palpable, languid and sticky like the summer humidity.

"Mugen, stop it."

"Stop what?" he barked.

"Scratching like that! It took me two weeks to get those wounds to close up properly, so stop trying to undo my work."

Jin couldn't see Mugen's face from back here but he knew him well enough to know he would be scowling.

Barely a moment ticked by before Fuu peered at him again and stopped in her tracks. "Mugen, cut it _out_ already!"

"I ain't fuckin scratching!" But even as he spoke to her he continued picking at the skin on the palm of his hand. He was glaring, but almost immediately Fuu's expression changed from one of anger to one of fear. Mugen stopped walking too then, leaving Jin with no choice but to pause as well or else walk straight into his back. "It's just a splinter," Mugen grumbled. "God damn. Don't get yourself all worked up."

Fuu perked up at that. "Oh, is that all?"

"Yeah, so quit yer-what are you doing?" Fuu advanced on him, pulling the chopsticks from her hair as she went, allowing the strands to scatter to her shoulders. "Leave it alone." He stepped back from her, nearly into Jin, but she grabbed his hand and yanked it toward her face.

"Shut up and let me help you. Moron."

"Hn?" Whatever insult he was about to throw back at her was lost in his curiosity as Fuu bent over his hand. Despite himself, he allowed her to spread it palm-up and he leered at her chopsticks as as she stuck her tongue out in concentration. There was a moment of hesitation while she surveyed the three gruesome and still healing wounds where the mad brother's weapon had pierced his hand through. With painstaking ginger caution she brought the tips of her chopsticks to his skin.

Mugen growled his disapproval, but made no move to act on it.

"Dang, it's really in there. This is gonna take a sec. Hold your horses, okay?"

Mugen chose this moment to turn his withering glare on Jin. A lesser man would have cowed under the threat in Mugen's ice cold eyes. The puff to his lip, the set in his jaw, his manic eyes open slightly too wide. The look said plainly: _say anything at all and I will gut you like a fish._

"Almost got it," Fuu crowed. The intense concentration she was expending on the task seemed excessive, and incredibly, she'd gotten the better of Mugen with it. His long limbs were now slack as he waited mildly for her to find what she was looking for.

Jin folded his own arms into his sleeves as Mugen swore and Fuu apologized for pinching too close to his healing skin with her chopsticks. The scene was surreal, to be quite honest. It was like watching a lamb pluck a thorn from the paw of a lion. Try as he might, he couldn't picture Mugen sitting still for this at the beginning of their journey. Nor could he entertain the notion that back then Fuu might've offered her help to Mugen for such a trivial matter... Grave injuries were one thing. This was another.

Later on when Jin thought of the two of them, far down the winding road, it was always this scene that he recalled, this one last oddly serene juxtaposition of tempered wilderness and dynamic grace that stood as their faces in his memory. Fuu bent raptly over Mugen's palm, and he looking down at her with thinly veiled curiosity. Something was very clear in that moment, at least to Jin, and he remembered the corners of his mouth lifting up in amusement at the incredulous realization. Perhaps it was only by slight degrees, but this Mugen was different than the one who'd once helped burn down a tea house.

So. She had changed him too, then.

When the fork at last presented itself, the anticlimax of the moment was stifling. Jin could only gather from the shared attitude of his two companions that they, all three of them, believed they would meet again.

He didn't look back when they parted. Nor did Fuu or Mugen, as he would have known if he'd turned to check.

In fact he felt at peace with their parting, if strangely dissatisfied. Why? He could only guess. He had not hoped to find enlightenment on this journey, in holding his end of Fuu's bargain, or to learn something—yet he felt he had. He thought again on that bright island day: the cliffside, when had had found something to give his life for. There in that moment had been the lesson. But now, as the companions each walked their separate paths, the distance between them opening up like three yawning chasms, that glimpse of meaning ebbed away from Jin and into the canyon. Like a slippery fish it eluded his grasp and disappeared once more in the current.

He thought it over as he traveled alone for the first time in more than a year. His purpose had been served. In the end he'd done the honorable thing. No one could argue he hadn't fulfilled all that duty had required of him. His late master would have been proud to see it. Shouldn't Jin be satisfied? Yet the nights grew rainy and the rain began to bleed the days together and Jin felt no satisfaction.

In his heart he knew that he no longer lived for honor, nor duty, nor recognition.

Perhaps it was a different reason that drove Jin to follow Fuu on her quest, Jin began to consider over the months. Though through most of their travels he contented himself believing he acted on his sense of duty, was it possible all he truly sought was reason itself? Reason to swing his sword, like he'd felt every day he trained in the dojo long ago. That familiar comfort of working toward a goal. In the past it had never much mattered to him what the goal was, as long as there was something to strive for. Thus was the case with Fuu's request. It didn't matter what her goal. She had one, so Jin followed.

In his entire lifetime he would never guess how close he had fallen to Mugen in that respect. Dig as deep as you want and you'd still find the two swordsmen were as different as night and day: while Jin retained all that cold tradition of the past, Mugen thrived on the unpredictability of the present. While Jin's personal ethical code ensured he would follow after Fuu, Mugen had no such thing. Jin couldn't pretend he'd never been curious as to the once-pirate's reasons for tagging along on this errant quest. The most Fuu had ever dragged out of Mugen was that he went along with it because "It just worked out that way." Sometimes Jin wondered dryly whether he'd agreed to follow Fuu simply because he had been bored that day. It certainly seemed like something he was capable of.

Of course, Jin would never find out exactly how close he had been to the mark. Or exactly how far.

One thing he would find soon enough, though, and that was the elusive fish he'd been searching for. The lesson.

If you called Jin and being of the past and Mugen of the present, then Fuu was of the future. Perhaps in the way a nearsighted man does not realize the trees have leaves until he is gifted a pair of glasses, Fuu had provided her two companions with a service they did not know they needed.

_Direction_.

_This _was the real reason, the _only _reason, the two men followed Fuu that day from the charred remains of the teahouse into the countryside, though they each had their own name for it. "Duty." "Boredom." Or if you asked Fuu, "A promise." But all it boiled down to was a tuning of broken compasses. She'd given these two men something to walk toward. The effects would change the course of their entire lives; now that the two of them had tasted direction on their tongues, they would never be fully content with directionlessness again. And not a one of them would have guessed which direction they were walking in that day when they set out from the teahouse in search of a samurai who smelled of sunflowers, or that day they set off in three separate directions from a lonely split in a road in the woods. Nor would they have guessed how their paths would converge once again, away down the road. There would be twists and turns but they would converge.

The first time the trio neared the ocean together, Mugen told Jin and Fuu in passing that all streams led back to the sea. For some reason they both remembered his words. Maybe this was why not one of the three looked back when they parted ways.


	2. Sunshine Seeking

Mugen was a simple guy. He wanted few things in life, and needed even less. He didn't love anything, which made it pretty easy to—

Well, yeah. Alright. So he loved _some_ things. There were a handful of life's luxuries he couldn't live without, at least not for long. Things that crippled when he went cold turkey on. Things he yearned for. Basic things: food and sake and a decent babe to warm the sheets every once in awhile. Things he both wanted _and_ needed. He guessed that was probably what people were getting at when they said they loved stuff, so if that was the case, then he had to admit (reluctantly) there were certain things that had him whipped.

The sun, for starters.

. . .

**Sunshine Seeking**  
. . .

He squinted at the yellow bastard coldly, before shielding his eyes from the glare and sinking further into the shallow shade of the rocky incline behind him. Beads of sweat pooled on his forehead and in every crevice on his body. He panted like the dog he was.

Mugen hated the way the sun burned when there were no clouds or shade, like right now on this hellish summer day. The way it blinded him when he walked straight towards it on late afternoons was enough to send him into a rage. He'd stab the sucker if he could reach that high. At the base of the wall of layered rock there was still a small straggling pool of water; resting here in dips on the stony surface, it'd escaped being soaked into the earth for a few hours longer than the rest of the rains. The glint of refracted sunlight was what drew his attention to the still water. Bending eagerly toward it, he disrupted his reflection on the surface and sloppily scooped water toward his dry mouth. Probably good since he'd been sweating and pissing away all his bodily fluids like a pig in a sauna.

When the puddle had been sapped for all its worth he shouldered his sword and stepped out of the shade, back onto the dirt path. The sun answered by immediately baking the shit out of his skin. God, he hated the sun.

But inevitably, after weeks of rain he was always hungry for it. Out at sea the first ray of sun after any storm always struck him like a trumpet, and he'd never quite lost his sea legs. So yeah, whatever. He loved the sun. Even now, when it was pissing him off. Mugen loved sunshine. He liked to, y'know.. lie in it and shit. And the way if you looked straight at it too long you could see burnt imprints of it everywhere else you looked for for awhile.

Fuu always yelled at him for it in that shrill voice she reserved just for scolding him. As he glared into the sun he was walking towards now he heard her screaming. _You're gonna go blind, you moron!_

With a grunt of annoyance he stretched his arms behind him, casting a withering glare to his left. "I ain't gonna go blind, bitch," he snapped.

"Hn?"

Mugen glanced to his right, then to his left again, and let his arms flop to his sides. The road was empty for miles behind him, and ahead was nothing but more dirt. He scratched his head. Damn - he'd seriously thought he heard her for real - but of course Mugen was alone. He hadn't seen Jin or Fuu in weeks now, since they parted ways after shit hit the fan at the end of Fuu's wild goose chase. Mugen squinted at the sun again, accusingly this time. Maybe he was more dehydrated than he'd thought.

So he made his way off the path in the vague direction he remembered the river flowing toward as of the last time he'd crossed it.

Water. That was another thing he loved. Fuck if he didn't like sailing on it, even if he wouldn't quite own up to just how much he liked it. It wasn't the act itself so much as it was the ocean. Little credibility lent itself to those stupid-ass siren stories pirates and sailors alike spewed at each other in taverns and before storms. No, for Mugen, the ocean was the siren. He could go a long time without it but he sure couldn't go forever. No matter how long he stayed away he always ended up back there again. If that weird shitty feeling he got whenever he went out of sight of the sea was love, then why the hell not. Sure. He'd heard of stupider things.

He loved water in smaller ways too though, like right now as the icy current folded around him when he waded deep into the river and dunked his head. He liked the way sun and water cancelled each other out, much the way Jin's sword had cancelled his (though he'd never in this fuckin lifetime phrase it that way out loud). The sun stole his shit away and the water gave it back. No harm done. It worked out, yeah?

As for his strange moment on the road, Mugen could chock it up to dehydration all he wanted, but that funny feeling had settled over him again like the layer of dust on his clothes and it didn't go away after he'd inhaled enough of the river to make himself queasy. Even while he struggled to fall asleep that night against a gnarled tree he couldn't shake the feeling, and it pissed him the hell off because it wasn't foreign to him at all. He knew what it was. He wasn't no fucking idiot.

He'd turned to speak again and found himself alone. Again.

His foot tapped impatiently against a fat jutting root. His scowl deepened, like he could scare sleep into his body. Every morning for the last couple weeks had begun with the same steady rain. When he woke up he expected the light of morning, but was always greeted with gray and with the promise of more trudging through mud and sopping wet clothes. Every damn morning. There was always a brief moment of delirium before he fully woke up and remembered why the sky was so gray that he was filled with disappointment, at expecting the sun and not finding it. It was always right after that moment that he loved sunshine the most. When he realized he'd be going without it for yet another miserable damn rainy fucking day. Damned if he'd admit it to anyone, but Mugen missed the sun. He wanted it.

That wasn't what pissed him off the most though. He tapped his geta on the root so hard it began to splinter out of its place in the damp soil. What really boiled him was remembering that feeling he'd gotten this morning when he finally woke up to clear skies. The relief as he stretched in the sunlight. The trumpets. His clothes were dry and he was happy.

It was pretty frickin easy to make Mugen happy. Just give him what he wanted. Wasn't hard, since his wants were straightforward.

Well,_ usually. _

"Shit," he ground out at no one one in particular.

Mugen wasn't no damn moron! If he could've travelled far enough or fast enough to find clearer skies he sure as shit would've. He'd been trying, dammit, traveling for days in search of a ray of freaking sunshine. Mugen had never yet been able to resist the siren call of something he wanted, and _that's_ why he was pissed. Because it was his nature to go straight after it. But what_ was it_ that he wanted this time?


	3. Starts with Sunflowers

Something in the air smelled like trouble and it wasn't the scent of burning fish, or the vomit outside the doorway that Jun still hadn't found a spare minute to sweep some dirt over.

"Another round, wouldja, honey?"

The sparsely toothed man pinched her thigh before she bowed away from them under the promise of more drinks. Jun considered as she fled back to the kitchen that she'd gone into the wrong line of business if she wanted a quiet life.

. . .

**Starts with Sunflowers**

. . .

"What do you think, Naomi?" she whispered. Together they peered around the corner at the raucous group of unfamiliar men. "Should I be worried?"

"Yakuza if I've ever seen 'em," Naomi declared. "Better get their order out pronto. Don't ruffle any feathers, kid. That's all I can say. I'll walk you home later." Naomi was scarcely taller than her, and no thicker around the biceps. Some protection that would be.

Jun bit her lip and delivered the drinks. She patiently waited out the cat calls and whistles that accompanied each bend as she dutifully emptied her tray to the eight unfamiliar men.

"What'sa matter?" The nearest man grabbed her wrist, spilling a splash of the drink she was handing him. "You look so tense. I know a few ways to ease the tension." That elicited a round of chuckles from his companions. "You and me, after dark, your place? Or how about now, behind this joint?"

"I'm sorry sir, I must attend to our newest customer. I'll be back to check on you gentlemen in a moment."

But she had to pry her arm from his grasp, and rubbed the five sore white lines away as she crossed to the newest guest. He lounged into the farthest southern corner of the place without any of the loud flair with which he'd strode through the door, and promptly began to pick at his teeth.

Jun cleared her throat. "Today's special is the—"

"Fifty dumplings."

"Excu..." She was going to protest, but then second guessed herself and had to pause while she went over the menu again in her head. Just then a second realization hit her and she paused again to size up this man, who looked more an animated scarecrow than a human. She'd been right the first time. Incredulity was appropriate._ "Fifty?"_

The scarecrow bared his teeth in what he seemed to think was a winning smile, and jabbed a thumb in the direction from which she'd come. "I take care of those creeps. You give me fifty dumplings."

Jun swallowed when she followed his gaze to the alleged yakuza. They had seen the scarecrow pointing, and they looked angry.

"I don't want to make trouble," Jun insisted, "and besides, we don't..." but she quieted as the man rose and drew a long sword from a sheath on his back, and its grating metal was so effective a silencer in the room full of patrons that when she went on to whisper "serve..." it could have been a shout in the hanging stillness and expectancy. At this point Jun inched unconsciously to the side. Her would-be protector lowered his blade until it was laying horizontal, a silver finger of accusation pointing toward the source of Jun's anxiety, the eight men who now stood up as one, with the scarecrow's sword following them as they wove between tables across the long room with all the steadfastness that the needle of a compass points north.

"Dumplings," Jun breathed, and completed her retreat, back flat against the wall.

"Fine," the scarecrow said, "I'll take fifty of today's special then." She nodded slowly at him, feeling the hungry stares of the eight angry swordsmen, and when the scarecrow made his move it was with more fluidity than she would have believed possible of his lanky limbs. He flipped the table and went after them.

Jun shrieked and dove out of the way as swords clashed and bodies blurred. She couldn't with any honesty pretend she watched all that happened, later, when Naomi demanded details. Her instinct had been to throw her arms up over her head and duck under the closest table until the bloodshed had passed.

"I don't know why he did it." Jun took a long sip of the broth Naomi offered her. They were the last to leave, as usual. Though she wasn't scared to leave tonight, not after the ruckus the scarecrow had caused; she didn't think anyone would bother starting trouble here again for at least a week. "The man is psychopathic."

"But what was he saying to you after? Saw him talking to you before he stormed off." Naomi took away Jun's empty bowl and replaced it with a stiff drink. Jun accepted wearily.

"Wanted his fifty dumplings." At Naomi's look of abject confusion, Jun shrugged. "He wanted fifty bowls of today's soup for helping me out. I said I wasn't paying up. He implied I could give him something else, to which I politely implied he could shove it up the same place he shoves swords."

_Not like that, you dumb broad, _was what he had come back at her with. _You're nothing much to look at anyway. I'm just hungry! Fuck! _That was when he'd stormed out.

"Ain'tcha gonna even say thank you?" was what he drawled drunkenly when she and Naomi at last emerged from the dark building with her sights set on home and her warm blanket. She started in surprise.

"You're still here?"

"Seeing as how I'm starving to death," he went on, "can't see how I could've made it any farther."

"Jun." Naomi tugged with insistence on the sleeve of Jun's kimono, but Jun shrugged her off.

"Thank you for what? Ensuring the wrath of the yakuza comes down on my head?"

The man slumped against the side of her workplace gave a bark of laughter. "Those guys weren't no yakuza. So, you gonna fuckin' thank me, or what?"

"Oh." Jun and Naomi exchanged looks. "Then... thank you," Jun finally said, and shrugged off her fellow waitress's anxious tug once more. "It's okay," she whispered to her. "I'll see you tomorrow morning, go on ahead."

Jun thought again as she led this man who towered over her back to her house that she'd gotten into the wrong line of business if she wanted a quiet life. "Just shut up," she told the man even though he hadn't said a word, "before I change my mind."

And Jun proceeded to cook for the scarecrow fifty dumplings.

The moon was well through two thirds of its trek across the sky when she'd finished. She woke the snoring man with a loud clink as she set a platter in front of him. He eyed her with suspicion, like a dog who'd been trained not to take treats when it is finally offered one. "No way," was all he said. And then, scarecrow body be damned, he found a way to put away every last one of them. Jun found herself laughing at him. For herself she'd made only eight. They didn't talk; what would there have been to say anyway? She didn't even know the mans name. But she found herself liking something about him anyway, despite how terrifyingly brutal he had been earlier. He finished at the same time she did, and they set down their chopsticks together.

"The wench followed through," he said, punctuating his sentence with a loud belch before going on to add, "who'da fuckin guessed it!"

Jun nimbly stacked their empty plates and rose to take them to the stone basin. "You are not used to men of their word?"

"Hell no!" he told her.

For once Jun left the delicate china all in a pile without washing it and returned instead to her place at the table. She knelt, hands on her knees, and peered across the table at the strange specimen in her home. He opened one eye lazily and stared back. "Oi, what?"

"So are you happy?"

His lip curled into what she could almost call a snarl. She was beginning to think he was more wild dog than scarecrow... And everyone knows you shouldn't feed wild dogs. They grow comfortable. A flutter of unease swept through her and she inched away from him, ever so slightly.

"The fuck kinda question is that?"

"I just meant—about the dumplings." She turned away, embarrassed and a little angry. "You got what you wanted, didn't you?"

The man picked his teeth without averting his gaze. What an animal. There was almost a full minute of silence before he deigned to answer her. He said it as he got to his feet, throwing his answer at her like a bit of spare change over his shoulder. "Got what I asked for."

She followed him to the door, surprised. It had begun to dawn on her that she may have to kick him out, but apparently not. Good thing too, because he didn't seem the kind to go quietly if he didn't want to. But he stopped in the doorframe and leaned there, framed by setting moonlight, arms folded in the most lax way, as if he'd been born to stand in her doorway.

"So," Jun ventured, one hand poised on her hip. "If you were so sure I wasn't gonna pay up, then how come you helped me at all, eh stranger?"

The man in her doorway shrugged. She imagined she saw hay stuffing fall from his sleeves. "Bored."

"You like to play hero when you're bored?"

One of his eyebrows twitched. "Lotta strangers come through here right? Like the low-lifes you thought were yakuza?"

"Uh.. Yes," she admitted. He hadn't even deflected her question, he outright ignored it. The manners on this one! "We come by many travelers since the main road passes through."

Scarecrow chewed on that for a moment. His fingers drummed on the hilt of his sword as he asked, "Y'ever meet a four-eyed samurai?"

Jun giggled, but quickly stilled her laughter at the look on his face. He was being serious! "No, I don't think so, stranger."

He nodded, like he'd been expecting her answer. He let his hand fall from his sword and he turned to go, before stopping one last time. Without turning he posed his one last question: "How 'bout a girl.. who speaks of sunflowers?"

Jun giggled, without qualm this time. So there was a girl.

"No," she said coyly, "but I've met a walking talking scarecrow who speaks of four-eyed samurais and sunflower girls."

"Eh." He dismissed her and strode away into the night, with one final word. "Nevermind." Jun waved but he didn't turn to see. Just as inexplicably as he had come the scarecrow was gone.

Jun didn't think of the scarecrow again until months later, when she sat down with the last customer in the bar. It was a traveller passing through, as customers so often were, and travellers always had something interesting to say.

"What's your story?" Jun said.

The girl set down her drink and brushed her hair from her eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"Last customer of the night always comes with a story." Jun winked, and gave her a nudge to indicate she wouldn't bite.

The girl brightened, and suddenly became an open chatterbox. "I have loads of stories. But I'll tell you the best one I have. It all started when I left home,"—she paused here to summon courage with a deep breath and gaze off to the far side of the bar before going on in a softer but more intense tone—"to search for a samurai who smells of sunflowers."

"Sunflowers, eh?" A smirk crossed Jun's lips. Could it be?

"Yes," she affirmed. "I know it sounds crazy."

"Nothing is crazy," Jun said. "Have you ever met a samuai with four eyes?" she ventured demurely. "Or a scarecrow that talks?"

The girl gripped the table for support, her face rich with emotion. "What the heck kinda question is that?"

"Just small talk. Never you mind." She pushed the girl's drink back toward her and gave her best and most reassuring toothy grin. "Now go on, dear, and tell me the story that starts with sunflowers."


	4. Resting Refrain (Part I)

_Eighteen months ago._

* * *

The fire was dying.

Fuu tiptoed around the farthest edges of the campsite, too skittish to travel farther than the dim circle of flickering reddish shadow, piling every little stick and twig she stumbled across into her arms. There wasn't much. They'd already gathered it all earlier, and had long since burned it.

As she moved back to the coughing embers she had to work her way quietly between Jin's prone body and the gnarled stump he'd lain by. He gave a particularly restful sigh and she froze, sure for a moment that she'd awoken him, but he only shifted to his side.

Fuu breathed again and delivered her load of sticks.

The instant she dropped them on the pile, the last remaining glow dimmed and smoked. Now that didn't make any sense! Desperately she blew on the coals and fanned them, but they were clearly on their last breath. Her sticks hadn't done much besides cut them off from oxygen. She sat back on her haunches and puffed out her lip, dejected and defeated. She was the worst at tending fires.

. . .

**Resting Refrain (Part I)**

. . .

Jin shifted again and Fuu tore her eyes from the last of her warmth and light.

She had to stifle a giggle. Jin, the most stoic and reserved man she'd ever met, often looked like a child when he slept. He'd accidentally fallen asleep with those glasses on and they were all askew, his mouth hanging wide open, his hair frazzled. She really liked it actually. The idiot never talked about anything, so sometimes she worried he was a two-dimensional drawing of a person rather than an actual human. But when he slept he seemed a lot more open. More real. Like there was this extra hidden layer, and when he slept it showed through like a patch of bright paint under peeling eggshell wallpaper. Not for the first time, Fuu found herself wondering what demons haunted his past. A guy didn't just _become _as silent as Jin without good reason. What was he dreaming about? Something good? Something bad? Something in between?

...And then, every so often, he would give a light snore. It was too rich. She wished she could capture the moment and show it to him while he was awake. He just looked so... _opposite_ of what he looked like when he was conscious.

Fuu tapped her cheek and contemplated the scene, until abruptly she stopped giggling. She suddenly knew what Jin would say if she were able to show this to him. He would keep that same flat expression and would go, _"Hmm." _

As soon as Fuu thought of that she had to clasp her hands over her mouth to keep from waking her two companions. She was _too_ hilarious! If Mugen were awake she might have even shared the joke with him. She probably would have even gotten a laugh!

After she calmed down she remembered with a jolt that in a few minutes she'd be totally alone in the dark, cold night. The moon hadn't even made an appearance yet tonight, and not too far away in the woods she could hear all sorts of faceless animals rustling...

She gave the open-mouthed Jin another once-over. She could always wake him up to get the fire going again but... she didn't need them for _everything! _At that thought she groaned and dropped her head into her hands. Who was she kidding? Sure, she liked to think if she'd gone off on this journey alone then she'd still have made it just fine. Her two bodyguards were a luxury, not a necessity. Yet they'd hardly been travelling together two weeks and the very instant they'd abandoned her she'd been kidnapped and thrown in a brothel. So much for taking care of herself.

In the couple of nights since then as she waited for sleep to come, her mind sometimes would stray down a dark familiar corridor, where at the end lay all the "what ifs" of life, and she would open one of the doors and wonder where exactly she would be right now if Mugen and Jin weren't a part of this.

_I'd be cold and blind every night, for starters,_ she thought, turning her attention back to the poor mistreated coals. She imagined them wheezing and saying, _"Help me..."_

This really stunk. She couldn't sleep and she didn't want to be left in the dark in the forest all alone.

Not that she was _really_ alone.

Behind her was Jin, ahead was the dying fire, and beyond it was Mugen, sprawled out haphazardly across the forest floor, one arm strewn over peeking roots, his legs twisted in a bit of moss. His geta had both fallen off. It was so dark she could barely make out his sleeping figure and might not have seen him if she hadn't already known he was there. But the rise and fall of his chest gave him away, the crest of his jaw rimmed in bare-bones red light as sleep and breath moved him.

Mugen.. now, Mugen looked exactly the same as he slept as he did when he was awake. There wasn't any paint or wallpaper, any layers, any hidden truths. There was just Mugen.

Fuu sighed and poked at the last chunk of coal with a partially chatted stick. It crackled and fell to pieces.

Well, that was that, then.

That last bit of light seemed like a beacon once it actually went out and she was plunged into darkness. It wasn't total darkness—it was a different kind, marked by deepest shadows fringed in the silver-gray of starlight sifted down through thin branches. It wasn't an ominous darkness, but with the hushed chorus of animals foraging or hunting or breezes through leaves, she felt the forest was pressing in around her.

Feeling her way on all fours she crawled back to the spot she'd made in a deep natural nook between fat emerging tree roots. From here she had something solid against her back and she could survey a wide semi-circle in every direction, encompassing their campsite and beyond. To her right, Jin snored. A bright flash glanced off the rim of his glasses and drew her eye.

Feeling bad that she'd laughed at him earlier and worried he might break them in his sleep, Fuu crawled over and gently pulled pulled them from the sleeping samurai's ears. But what had that light been? She turned the glasses over and over in her hands back in her own spot, until suddenly—

There—again!

It took a couple minutes of experimentation to find the source of the reflection, to figure out the glass was catching the reflection of the moon. She had to bend over to catch a glimpse of it. It had just barely begun to emerge and was showing, bit by smallest bit, through the forest canopy to the shadowed bed below. The light roved slowly, like a polar form of shadow itself. She watched the patches move as sleep continued to evade her, gradually infiltrating their little camp. Bored, she turned the glasses over and over in her hands.

A big patch of light had finally intersected the outer edge of their circle. Now instead of red Mugen was outlined in silver. The patch overtook him, slowly, over the next hour, swallowing him whole.

It must have been long after midnight when Fuu left the dark of her own crevice, seeking the light on Mugen's side of the clearing. There was enough moonlit space now for her to stretch her legs out and sit back against the tree trunk. He looked a heckuva lot less menacing this way, bathed in softer light. But he still looked pretty much the same as he did in his waking hours. His limbs splayed with carelessness, laying with fearlessness, back slightly to the woods... You could slap pretty much any word that ended in "-lessness" onto Mugen. Without knowing why she wrinkled her nose at him.

God, was she bored.

Why couldn't she sleep?

She turned the glasses over again, angling the little refracted moonspots at Mugen, thinking about how he'd react if she woke him up by blinding him with Jin's glasses. Wait. Who was she kidding? She knew what he'd say. He'd give her that murderous, dangerous, wild-eyed look that she couldn't be scared of if she tried, and he would go, _"Oi!"_

A laugh busted out of her. She was on fire tonight! (Well, with the jokes, at least.) She was too funny for her own good. She wrinkled her nose at him again, this time with the tiniest mote of affection, and wiggled the patch of light across his eyelids.

He squeezed them shut and drew a sharp breath, which had Fuu dropping the glasses abruptly into the dirt. She actually woke him!

She braced for the _"Oi!" _

But it didn't come.

Instead he relaxed again, breathing deeply—until just as quickly his eyebrows creased once more, deep lines forming canyons around his eyes, his chest rising, one hand clenching into a loose fist.

The glasses lay forgotten where she had dropped them. She whispered. "Mugen?"

His breaths quickened further and he tossed his head to the side. No, he wasn't awake. The realization struck her all at once and she felt silly for having sat there so startled for a moment, thinking maybe he was dying or something. But it wasn't her fault; after all, she'd never seen him make that kind of troubled expression. Never. Not even when execution had faced him that day after he strolled into her teahouse. So it took her a moment to recognize the emotion she saw playing his face like a shamisen.

Her bodyguard moved, clothes scratching against dirt and dried leaves. His mouth fell open and he panted, desperately, like he'd been running for hours without water.

The emotion was fear. Mugen was having a _nightmare_.

Fuu sat there like an idiot, staring. Should she wake him? Somehow she didn't see that going over well. But guilt and worry were beginning to creep up into her heart, as if Mugen was facing an unknown enemy somewhere in the night and it was all her fault.

"Hey, Mugen," she said gently, hoping to stir him and also hoping not to.

He was untouched by her voice. His breath had quickened to near-hyperventilation and his bared teeth were stark in the glowing moonlight. She moved herself quietly around to the other side of the trunk as he wildly tossed in his sleep and nearly hit her with a roving arm. Now she was on the side facing the dimly lit forest. She opened her mouth to speak his name again but stopped. It felt like intruding. Like she'd walked in on something very personal. And maybe she was a horrible person for thinking it, but... she wondered if an occasional dose of fear was healthy for someone like Mugen.

She scooted as close to his back as she could and peeked at his face. It was disquieting. What was he dreaming about? What could possibly quicken the heartbeat of someone like him? She'd thought until now that he wasn't even capable of experiencing fear. Maybe she was a horrible person after all—but only for thinking anyone could live totally without fear.

Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead and she made up her mind. She reached toward him.

When she was a little girl her mother had always woken her from tossing nightmares with a gentle touch on the head, a brush of her hair. Mugen's shock of hair was tangled, yet surprisingly soft. She'd never touched it and was taken aback. "Mugen," she whispered, again.

He shot upward, panting for breath, sending her tumbling backward to the side of the trunk. She hit her head on a thick knot in the wood and the multitude of stars in the sky danced a dizzying jig for a couple moments. When she sat up she was about to give him a piece of her mind, but—

Mugen was just sitting there. He hadn't even noticed Fuu, off to the side as she was, slightly behind him. His breaths were gradually coming under control. As he fell back into silence he bowed his head, the lattice of moonlight shifting over his face like a fishnet, and turned his palms toward his face. Then, briefly, he brought his left hand to his other wrist and gripped it like it was broken, brushing his thumb across the inner side of it as if the veins there were painted on and he wanted to wipe them away.

What was he...?

Fuu let out the breath she'd been holding and his eyes flicked in her direction.

"Oi." (There it was.) But she didn't laugh. "The fuck did you wake me up for?"

Hey, so apparently he _had_ known she was there by get tree trunk. Nothing slipped past him. "I, uh..." He was giving her those 'I'm gonna actually murder you' eyes. She sighed. The man could be such a big baby. "Couldn't get the fire started," she finished meekly.

To her surprise, Mugen's expression slid away from hard intimidation. He rolled his eyes back and looked at the moon as if to ask, _"What did I do to deserve this?"_

Fuu scrambled after him as he wobbled sleepily toward the charred pit where the fire had been. "You moron," he accused, and rubbed one eye. "You just threw a bunch of fat sticks on here."

"Yeah, to—" she shot back, but returned to a whisper as Jin rustled in his sleep, "—burn them!"

"Can't start with fatass sticks," he murmured. Then he mumbled incoherently and stabbed at the coals with his eyes closed, until...

"Hey!" Fuu whispered indignantly. The coals had sparked to life! All he did was smash them to pieces. Well, Fuu could have done that herself! "How did you.."

"Start off with kindling," he grumbled, and began to throw piles of dried pine needles onto the freshly glowing coals, "or you ain't getting' shit for your efforts."

"Kindling..." she repeated. "Got it."

"And when you put the sticks on," he went on, finally opening his eyes as he began to poke around in the pit for all Fuu's unburned sticks, "start _small_. And you can't just throw 'em on, either," he added. Fuu watched as he arranged the littlest sticks into a little tent around the sparking coal, leaning them against one another for support. Fuu realized something with a start, as the red of the bug-sized flames swallowing the dead pine needles sent light licking across Mugen's hands while he worked.

_Oh_, she thought. _His tattoos. _

The bracelets of blue around his wrists... They were such a part of him that she sometimes forgot they were there. What they represented. She thought of him running one thumb over them as the troubled hands of sleep retreated from his shoulders and frowned.

"You gotta let 'em breathe, or they won't catch fire." Fuu tore her eyes from his wrists and realized he was again glaring at her. There was no malice in it though, only sleepiness.

"Let them breathe," she repeated. "Got it."

"Think you can go without waking me up next time?" he growled.

Fuu nodded, for once without biting back at his aggressive tone.

_Let them breathe,_ she repeated to herself as Mugen went back to his patch of moonlight. The fire was now crackling to life, hot flames eating their way up the diagonal sticks. A solitary spark detached itself and floated towards the cold sand. Fuu patted it out. She pulled more sticks from the dark side of the firepit, slightly bigger this time, and proceeded to stack them against each other like Mugen had shown her. _Build them up and let them breathe._


	5. Direction for Dogs

"It's bad to go on feeding that thing like this. You're only prolonging its pain and—yech, I'm going back inside."

"You have no heart."

Fuu scraped the last bit of meat from the plate of scraps, and the mangy animal licked at it lazily without lifting its head from the ground. If she hadn't been scared to catch a disease from it she'd have the poor thing cradled in her arms; the dog had gotten in some fight or another and had been dying a slow death behind their bar for almost a week. Yet as long as it was still breathing, Fuu would go on giving it scraps.

. . .

**Direction for Dogs**

. . .

"I've a heart," Jun defended, one hand on her chest, "but I've also a brain. And I know a lost cause when I see one."

"You really think he's done for, JuJu?"

"Aye. Now come on already. It's as chaotic in there as a bees under a bear's breath! I need you focused on your tables, flower girl, not on this creature again. Naomi took a chance on you and I don't wanna look a fool for vouching. Let him die in piece," she added, dropping the harsh tone for a more sympathetic one, "and come inside."

"But—"

"Neh." The elder waitress took Fuu's sticky plate from her hands and stacked it onto the hasty pile balanced against her hip. "Look here." Without upsetting any of the plates, she bent and waved away ten or so flies to point at the dog's wet, crusted eyes. "It's not the injuries or anything." Though the injuries were bad, Fuu had patched them up days ago. "It's here, right... here." A fly landed on his eye and the dog blinked slowly but didn't move an inch. "Light's gone," Jun decided. "It doesn't even wanna try. The dog hasn't moved an inch since it laid down here last week and it's never gonna move again. It's got no reason to."

Fuu was left in the bitter afternoon chill by herself. She pursed her lips and folded her arms tight to block out some of the sweeping wind, but soon heard Naomi calling out her name from within.

The dog blinked. It stared not at Fuu but at the flies.

"Don't think about the flies, buddy," she whispered to him. "Think about the meat."

As an incentive to live she pushed the remainder of yesterday's chicken toward him, and he turned his droopy eyes on her as he licked at it again. On a sudden whim she pulled the meat away. She scooted it a foot away, where the dog was close enough to scare off any would-be avian thiefs, but far enough to not be able to reach. Then she went back to work.

"I'll be damned," Jun said later that afternoon when she came back from her break. "The dog moved."

Fuu stretched her arms behind her back and sighed with satisfaction. "I knew it." After their shifts were over Fuu took out more scraps and Jun followed, pretending not to be curious, and watched Fuu scrape it off, this time three whole feet from the dog.

"What are you doing now?"

"Giving him something to work toward."

"You think it'll help?"

"Got him moving in the first place, didn't it?"

And it was doing so a second time. The once-doomed dog interrupted them by giving a loud pitiful whine and inching itself a shallow pace across the gritty sand. It was clear in the way it moved that its injuries had begun to heal.

Jun chuckled wryly and nudged Fuu's hip with hers. This strange girl continued to surprise her, in new ways every day. "I guess even dogs need a sunflower samurai."

.

.

Jin woke up one morning in the spring with the answer on his tongue. He'd spent so much time wondering about it, yet when it finally came it came while he was sleeping. He'd dreamt not of his past, for once, not of memories good or bad. It had been a field grown over with wildflowers to which he'd never been in this life. And when he woke up, he opened his eyes to the endless blue sky and knew.

_I am in need of a sunflower samurai._

The road for Jin had been long since Fuu had found her Seizo Kasume. For a time he had wandered, until eventually he found himself at the dock where he had said goodbye to Shino. He knew he'd not come there by accident. Yet he regretted it, and could go no further than the shore. It would be a long time yet before he could see Shino. It had only been a year and a half since they parted, and it would be another year and a half yet before she could see him again. And she would. But not until then.

After that he only wandered.

The morning he woke with the answer, he was sleeping by the shore in a growing fishing village far in the north, tucked away in a hidden valley at the foot of a mountain. Seagulls squawked and wheeled overhead, like boats across the blue. Jin pushed his glasses into his face and rose. When he stood he felt it was the first step of his second journey, and perhaps all the steps from that fork in the road to here had only been an intermission of sorts. Now, now was Act Two.

But it wouldn't be until nightfall that he truly saw the way he would be walking. It took until nightfall to realize what would be for him the Seizo Kasume in the distance. The faceless prize. The far-off goal. He was simply walking past when it happened, deep in his own thoughts when they were interrupted.

"Hey there, handsome."

There was a woman, standing tall behind a row of vertical wooden planks, ornate with lovely carvings yet arrayed like prison bars. She was as decorated as a porcelain doll.

"Yes, you." She covered the lower half of her face with her sleeve, her movements coy, her eyes bright. "For only a couple of ryo I could be yours for tonight. Would you like that?"

Jin walked toward her, searching her demure face. She was just the same size as Shino, even the length of her hair. It would be a pleasure to have her. But that was not what he desired.

"Tell me," he said, and it was as if a spark went off in his head, lighting the tip of a long fuse. "Are you here on your own volition?"

The woman lowered her arm from her face, uncovering a slight frown. "I don't... understand."

"Tell me," Jin repeated. "If you wanted to leave would you be able to?"

The woman looked to her right and her left, but she was alone in her small room, and there was no one to hear her answer, save for Jin. And finally, after a long silence, she did answer. "No."

Jin reached through the bar and grabbed hold of her wrist on instinct, because the woman had begun to back up, skittish as a rabbit in a clearing. The defeated look in her eyes reminded him of Shino and he knew what he was supposed to do.

"Tell me," he went on. "Do you want to leave?"

He knew when she gave a short sharp nod that this woman would only be the second of many. Jin had set his course.

.

.

Somewhere on a distant mountainside, a monster was loose.

People whispered to each other about it over drinks, over campfires, under the blankets. Bodies always turned up, but not in these numbers.

Of course they were usually no one to be concerned with. Thugs, no-goods, bums, the lot of them were troublesome... But really, to find a new death each day was frightening, criminals though they may be. Whoever was killing them was surely an evil beast.

But as usual, the masses had mythologized a lesser story. The first criminal to die only died because he looked at a madman the wrong way.

"Fuck off," the madman had said.

That hadn't sat well with the man, and thus he had found himself cut to pieces a few minutes later.

The next man to die was cut down because he tried to mug the madman. (There's a lesson in there somewhere, but every person to repeat the story tells it differently, and it's stretched until it means next to nothing).

The next man to die put up quite a fight. He'd been taunting every man with a sword for three square miles, picking a fight with everyone he could find. He happened to pick a fight with the wrong guy, and he died right in front of four members of his gang.

On the first night after the snow had melted, two men sparred in an alley, sending cats scurrying away into the night.

"You're the one, aren't you?" the merchant spat through a mouthful of blood. "The one that's going around killing criminals."

"Eh?" The madman lowered his sword ever so slightly, a look of confusion crossing his face. "What, those guys were criminals?"

The merchant flapped his jaw. "You didn't.. You weren't...?"

The madman shrugged his shoulders in a frazzled, 'no skin off my back' kind of way.

"I can't fucking believe this. You're no vigilante... You're just a murderer."

"All those—" he punctuated his sentence with heaving blows of metal that rang off the other man's petty sword, "—_jackasses_—" (ring) "—were _askin'_—" (ring) "—for it!"

"Piece of shit samurai," the merchant said as his sword was kicked from his grasp. He fell to his knees, clutching his broken hand.

"Shouldn't've called me that," the madman answered before delivering a rib-crunching kick that knocked over his foe. "How many times I gotta tell you people I ain't no samurai?"

"You're gonna kill me over a couple of words?"

The other man stood silhouetted against the moonlight for a long moment, then slung his sword over his shoulder. "Guess not. ...Don't really feel like it."

The merchant blubbered on the brittle grass, looking whiplashed. "You're... Did you kill all those people because you _felt_ like it?"

He wrinkled his face in a mixture of disgust and contemplation, and promptly turned to walk in the opposite direction. "Peace," was all he said, and the man was gone.

.

.

Mugen sat with his back to a building on the outskirts of town, frowning hard. He took out all his frustration on his sword, which he was sharpening with an ordinary rock. Jin would have busted an eye vessel just watching the atrocity of Mugen's blade-sharpening ritual. (It involved zero strategy—just grind grind grinding at whichever part didn't feel sharp enough.)

He glared at his blade like it was the one at fault here. "What _gives?" _he complained loudly, to no one.

Fighting just didn't _thrill_ him anymore. No matter what he tried, no matter how badass the opponent. It just didn't even ruffle his feathers. He couldn't even remember the last time his adrenaline had been pumping. He felt starved.

Okay, that was a lie.

Mugen could remember the last time he'd felt the high of adrenaline coursing through his veins, propelling him forward even though all his muscles were trying to fall to the ground in a heap. The dusty cross in the ruins of the church where he'd embedded his sword swam to the surface of his mind. He'd never been closer to dying than he had on that day. (_"Mugen—!" _When she'd said his name and cut through the haze of gathering crows then he'd thought she was the angel of death, he really had.) Yet he'd never felt more alive than he had then, on death's door.

And he'd spent the last couple months trying (in vain) to recapture that feeling. The glory of it: the sweeping, the lifting, the empowerment. He'd felt _powerful_.

Didn't matter how many bums he picked fights with. Didn't matter who he fought, how skilled they were, or how incredible Mugen's victory was. It just never resonated. He didn't feel it like that anymore, down in his bones like gunpowder.

He attacked his sword again and again with the stone, making sure to get the very tip. Mugen wasn't an idiot, but he was stubborn. He was reluctant to admit that he already knew what his problem was. (That it wasn't about who he was fighting.) But, goddamnit, he was _bored_. He was tired of this—whatever 'this' was.

Nothing got Mugen agreeing to stupid ideas like feeling bored.

So later that night when a smallish boy tried to pickpocket the madman, he happened to be in a 'stupid idea' enough mood to not cripple the kid.

Instead, when he caught the boy's wrist and caused his coins to go rolling across the dirt, he asked suddenly, "Hey, you ever met a girl who never shuts up about sunflowers?"

The boy spluttered and gave his head a vigorous shake.

"You should probably get a sword before you go 'round tryna pick pockets," Mugen criticized before shoving the boy away.

It was two days later that he saw the boy crying at the well.

"Oi," was all he said. The boy started, and made to run away. He was skittish, ready to run at anything. Mugen should've realized before. He grabbed the kid by the shirt and gave him a murderous look—one that didn't match at all with the words he said. "I ain't gonna gut you! Chill out."

"What do you want?" he squeaked. Damn, he was a tiny little thing.

"What kinda trouble you in, kid?" Mugen squinted at him.

The boy blinked, the barest hint of water welling up in the corners. "Trouble?"

"Someone after you?"

The boy wrenched himself from Mugen's grasp, staring hard at the well. "Kind of.. It's not that simple."

"So, what—is he some kind of badass or something?"

The boy shrugged, despondent. "I guess. Why?"

Mugen grinned, almost manically. The boy stepped back, not sure what to make up this development, nearly tripping and stumbling into the mouth of the well. Mugen shoved one thumb into his chest and embedded his sword into the ground with an unnecessary amount of force. He gave the kid the full-fledged madman look that he'd always tried to frighten Fuu with (it never really worked) and said, "Because _I'm_ some kind of _bigger_ badass, and I'm motherfucking bored!"

The kid slowly dropped his defensive stance, lowering his arms to his side, his eyes widening, the corners of his mouth lifting toward his cheeks in the beginnings of hope, the burst of fear that had come over him at Mugen's catlike grin fading away, until when his arms finally rested against the stone of the well Mugen could tell without a doubt that the kid no longer feared him.

At the vanishing of the little boy's fear, Mugen died a little death. But after that was a birth. The tiniest rush of adrenaline. A fleeting glimpse. Mugen ripped up his sword, scattering tufts of grass. He could admit it, if only to himself.

(That it wasn't about who he was fighting, it was about who he was fighting for.)


	6. Familiar Faces

"I hope it rains."

Outside the bar, all but the tiniest patch of stars in the east were obscured. The muted gray of the moon barely shone overhead through the gathering clouds. Fuu breathed the crisp air for the briefest of moments before withdrawing from the doorway with a polite dip of her head to the burly regular as he shoved his way past her into the establishment. She hadn't been talking to anyone in particular, which was fine, because no one answered. The man nodded to Fuu in recognition as the door flapped shut.

Someone from a table in the corner called for another round. She went to take care of it, leaving the sky on the doormat.

.

.

"Mugen, there are lights in the distance."

"I see 'em."

"You think we can make it there tonight?"

"We're sure as hell not sleeping in the woods." He glared down across the valley toward the faint yellow lights situated in a crest in the hills. They seemed not too far off, but it was hard to gauge the walking distance, the way the dark trees obscured the roll of the land. It'd been a long time since he'd been here last.

"But I'm so _tired_... Maybe we could just sleep for awhile and get there in the morning."

"Quit your whining. We'll be there soon enough. I ain't sleepin in the woods again." Mugen was in no mood to get soaking wet. The night wind was chill enough as it was. Getting caught in the brewing storm at this time of night sounded like a real shitty time. Besides, he was itching for warmth—the type only sake and a handful of tits could give.

A soft thud drove the pleasant thought from his mind. He scowled at Hiro, who had sat his lazy ass down in a pile of dried leaves.

"Get your ass up," he ordered, and hauled him to his feet by the back of his collar. "N'less you wanna freeze it off later."

Hiro wriggled himself loose and brushed the leaves from his clothes. "It's not that cold," he complained.

"No," Mugen admitted without looking back to check whether the kid was following or not. There was a generous patch of clear sky hanging directly over them. But all around there were gathering clouds. They hadn't gathered enough mass to spill, and the sharp smell of the impending storm wouldn't hit for a while yet, but Mugen had stood on a swaying deck for so many weeks of his life that he was never wrong. He jutted his thumb in the vague direction of the east, where the clouds were roving into the valley. "But it's gonna rain."

. . .

**Familiar Faces**

. . .

Fuu was laughing with her favorite customers when Mugen followed Hiro into the bar, and neither saw the other. He looked around while the kid pushed through the crowd in search of an empty table. Mugen was in search of something else. Someone to squeeze a lil bit. Because god damn had it been a long time since he'd been laid.

There were a lot of women in the bar so he scanned them quickly, assessing his options. Maybe once the kid passed out he would sneak out for a bit... _Nope, nope, too ugly, too old, you're pretty fine so maybe, no way, maybe, fuck no, maybe_—_definitely, _he changed the last one as the waitress banged her fist on the table. Probably laughing. Maybe she was drunk. She looked good from this side, so maybe he should go and—

The cacophony in the bar leveled out to a ringing tone as the waitress stood with her tray and turned toward the kitchen. He got a full-on glimpse of her before the asshole next to her followed and blocked her momentarily from his view. A flashy blue fabric so bright it almost hurt, white petals weaved all the way up the sides around slender hips, but still those same beat up sandals, same long neck, too thin and too fragile, and that knot of messy hair falling all over teh place. He scratched his stubble. The sounds of the bar filled his head again, and this time he could distinctly make out her voice in the middle of it all. Chirpy and obnoxious and commanding as ever.

Yep. It was her. Go figure. _Right_ when he'd given up on finding her. Dumb broad!

He was snapped to attention when the hulking guy next to her put his hand on her shoulder and leaned in close to her ear, whispering something. Fuu shrieked and slapped him on the arm, but he only guffawed and pulled her back when she made to move away.

Mugen was across the room in a heartbeat, breaking the guy's wrist with a sickening snap as he wrenched his arm behind him. "Yo," he said coolly, drinking in Fuu's shocked recognition.

"Mugen—!" she gasped, and dropped her empty tray.

"Hey, you wanna lose your other wrist, buddy?" Mugen drawled as the man kneeling before him struggled to rise. "Don't think the lady's interested."

He shot Fuu a smirk. _You're fucking welcome,_ the smirk yelled. What he wasn't expecting was for the happiness on her face to suddenly contort into rage.

"Hey, get off of him!"

He was so shocked he actually let the bitch go. "Say what?"

"We were _joking_ _around_, you freaking idiot! He's a _customer! _We're _friends_—"

"You didn't sound too happy to me," he grumbled. Everyone in the bar had fallen silent and were staring at the pair of them.

The man on the floor began to crawl away under the cover of the tense silence, completely forgotten by Fuu, who had begun to turn a dangerous shade of red.

She let out a sound so pressurized she might have been a tea kettle near boiling, then stomped her foot and jabbed her finger at his chest, progressing as she yelled from finger jabs into the use of her flattened palms. "I can't believe you! You lousy, no good, stupid—stupid—you jerk!" she ended lamely, for lack of a better insult. Mugen merely scratched his face, unphased by either her physical or verbal assaults. His disinterest only fueled her rage. "I can't believe you finally showed up after all this time and this is the first thing you go and do! What is _wrong_ with you?"

"Um, miss..."

"_What?" _Fuu screeched, only to feel immediate guilt when she turned and saw the person who had spoken was only a young boy, maybe no older than ten.

The boy quailed at her words, but steeled himself and tugged again on her patterned kimono. "I really don't think you should talk to him like that." He worried at his lip after he spoke and wrung his hands together.

"And _why not?_"

Hiro cast a sidelong look at Mugen, who was now eyeing them both with a oddly guilty look in his eye, like a man caught by his wife in a whorehouse. Fuu's interest piqued upon seeing Mugen's reaction to the boy, and she found her anger ebbing in the wake of her curiosity.

"This is _Mugen_," the boy pleaded, like he was introducing her to the angel of death. "He's my bodyguard and he's really scary when he's mad, and you seem kind of nice so you should just walk away if you know what's good for you."

She had stopped listening at the word bodyguard.

_Bodyguard?_

She repeated the word aloud slowly, like she'd never heard it before.

Mugen set his face, clutching his sword like she was attacking him. His tumultuous eyes dared her to say anything more about it. She didn't. She couldn't. She was so shocked. Eventually the silence must have got the better of him, because Mugen broke long before she would have found words to express her confusion.

"Yeah, so what?" He sheathed his sword with an air of surrender. "I'm good at it. Shut the hell up already."

Later when Mugen lay passed out drunk and cold on the floor of her one-room little shack, Fuu went outside and found Hiro watching the rain fall. She had so many questions for him. But it was Hiro who spoke first.

"That was amazing," he said with reverence.

"Sorry, what?" She was a bit distracted. What did he mean?

"Back in the teahouse," Hiro went on, gracing her with a set of wide, disbelieving eyes. "I've never seen anyone talk to Mugen like that and live to tell the tale. I think I know who you are." His eyes danced as he pointed at her in triumph. "You're the girl who speaks of sunflowers!"

"Uh... Yeah." Fuu blinked in surprise. "I suppose that's me." The fact that Mugen had mentioned her, even if it was maybe only once, was not lost on her.

"He's been looking for you, then." Hiro yawned and stretched his legs on the dim patio. "Guess we found you."

"Yeah, I guess you did." She didn't know what to say. Under the sound of the rain she could hear Mugen snoring loudly inside. Same old Mugen. "Hiro... I have to admit, I'm completely astounded to find Mugen as your bodyguard." All the crap she put herself through winning Mugen's and Jin's loyalties was something she'd never think a kid this young could accomplish—at least, not without going crazy.

"Oh, that." Hiro laughed, picking at wet grass sprung up on the side of the porch. "Well, it's just till we reach Edo anyway. I'm going to live with my grandparents."

"Yeah but.. How the heck did you ever get him to agree to it?" This was _Mugen_ after all.

Hiro eyed her like she'd asked something very silly. "I didn't. He was the one who offered."

Fuu surveyed Mugen's limp sleeping form with something like amazement. Was that _so? _

They listened to the rain and Mugen's snoring in amicable silence after that. Fuu thought about her own words: _same old Mugen_. She turned them over, kneaded them like dough, and considered throwing them away. But after a short while she decided they were still true. Even in light of this latest and still more shocking discovery. (Mugen _wanting_ to be a bodyguard—it seemed preposterous!) Yet, in every way he was still the same. People like him weren't capable of change. Hiro continued to pull up wet grass and when he found a white flower he offered it up to Fuu with a slightly guilty smile. Fuu took it and, though it was wet, tucked it in her hair. She showed him inside and gave him the only bedding she had in the house, and while Hiro drifted into sleep Fuu noted that Mugen still slept with his limbs splayed in every which direction. He wasn't capable of change.

In the morning they were gone, and another white flower and a note from Hiro reminding her of their haste to Edo had been left on her doorstep as the only proof they'd been there. When Jun and Naomi implored her that night to tell if the crazy scarecrow who'd "saved her" yesterday was that very same bodyguard from her journey, she told them it must have been the same man because Mugen was not capable of change. No, not of change, but… maybe of far greater feats.


	7. The Hideaway House

**_Author's Note:_**

_Hey, I ended up extending this chapter in lieu of writing the next one. _

* * *

Fuu stood frozen and uncertain in her own doorway. "Oh." The pile of firewood in her arms nearly slipped from her grasp.

"Oh what?"

He was just sitting there on her floor, counting out a pile of coins like he owned the place.

She opened her mouth, closed it with a huff, then opened it again. "I just didn't think you'd be back, after you left in such a rush—without even saying goodbye."

"Cool it." He didn't even look up at her as she kicked off her sandals. "You knew we were in a hurry."

"I know, I just didn't..." she trailed off. It was different, seeing him in the daylight. The light filtered through her windows and she spotted a handful of scars she didn't recognize.

Finally Mugen looked up, smirking like a maniac. "Missed me that much, huh?"

**. . .**

**The Hideaway House**

**. . .**

"I did _not_." She went about picking up his haori from its place on her hearth and shaking it off outside before hanging it out the window; it was absolutely filthy and she didn't want it in her house. "I'm just surprised you came back so soon."

Something in her tone stopped his hands as he counted the same seven ryo again, and he rolled away from her dark fireplace toward a small bundle of cloth that sat on his sword in the corner by the stove. "Couldn't pass up the opportunity for a free night's stay indoors." He showed no acknowledgement for Fuu's indignant huff (really, was she running an _inn?_) and went on unraveling the woven cloth. "Brought my own bedding this time, though. Since ya only got one goddamn blanket and I got about a hundred splinters from your freakin' floor last time. What's for dinner, anyway?"

Fuu screwed up her face in annoyance and stalked to the fireplace, where she threw all the sticks at once into the powdered ashes, stirring up a small cloud of soot. "_I_ was planning on having fish―"

"Great! I'm _starving_."

Fuu kicked him in the ribs where he lay with his eyes closed on his tattered blanket. "Are you kidding me, Mugen? What do I look like to you? You can't just come in here and… and…"

Mugen shoved the blanket under his head and crossed his ankles. "Alright, alright, tell you what. I'll trade you."

Snort. "What could you possibly have to offer?"

He bared his teeth at her and sat up, whipping the blanket aloft. "You feed me and I'll leave this with you."

Fuu stared at it for a moment. It was riddled with holes, slightly moth-eaten, and she found herself wondering where the heck he procured it from. Had he really brought it to sleep on or was this 'bargain' idea his plan from the beginning? Didn't he know she'd feed him whether or not he brought her some form of payment? Was he some kind of idiot?

She took it from him and made the mistake of looking him in the eye while doing so. She was surprised by a fleeting gleam of sincerity, and had to admit to herself that however much she proclaimed it, Mugen was no idiot. Of course he knew there was a place for him on her floor, practically with his name on it. Which led to only one conclusion. This... was a gift.

And true to his word, when he left the next day he left without it.

The next time Mugen returned to Fuu's house was nearly a month later, propped up under a teetering but beautiful woman. As she bound his wounds she questioned the woman viciously.

"He was only doing his job…" the woman defended weakly, after ten straight minutes of Fuu's most crass insults. Fuu only hmphed at that, wondering yet again what had possessed Mugen to go on playing bodyguard after she'd relinquished him from their verbal contract.

When the two of them left a week later Mugen steadfastly averted his eyes while he grumbled out what sounded like a "Thanks."

"Please be more careful," Fuu pleaded, though she knew it was a futile request.

"Yeah yeah," he sighed. And he was gone, again. Fuu retreated indoors and began to clean up the remains of the mess he'd left behind. Stale bandages and dirty plates and-oh. He'd left behind another blanket. She'd noticed him sleeping on it but had thought perhaps it belonged to that woman he'd been traveling with. Perhaps not.

Out in her yard she shivered as she shook it off in the breeze. This one had flowers stitched in around the edges and was noticeably less tattered than the quilt before it. How much had he paid for it? It wasn't until she went in and stretched it across her other two blankets that she noticed the backside, where in the bottom corner was a scribbled double-loop, a single character, a small infinity. '_Mugen.'_

_Why had he written his name on it if he'd planned to give it to her?_

.

.

On a brisk morning late in autumn, dawn was breaking and Fuu was off. Behind her house she left six whole fish, hidden slightly behind a withering leafless bush. It had been about a week since she'd seen her crippled stray dog, but she wanted him to know she was still around, in case she was late in coming home. She knew he'd smell the food there and felt assured that the poor mutt wouldn't go hungry while she was away. At the shop Naomi was already waiting to pass off the empty cart Fuu would be taking up north. The older woman held her hand up to her mouth to stifle a cough, offering Fuu a sympathetic look.

"Are you sure you're alright going it alone?" she asked.

"I've traveled greater distances than this alone, Naomi." Fuu made sure the tarp was secure in the back before climbing atop the cart. She nearly fell at first, but managed to regain her foothold. "I'll be fine!" she dismissed, slightly offended by Naomi's skepticism. "It's not like you have a choice anyway. You need to rest."

Naomi could only nod, failing again to subdue her cough. The bitter weather couldn't have been helping. "Here's the list." She procured a rolled paper from her sleeve and pressed it firmly into Fuu's open hand. "Don't forget anything, okay? We can't afford to go without. Next pickup isn't for weeks."

Fuu examined the list again. _Flour, rice, sake…_ Etcetera. She'd easily be able to find all this in Edo.

Besides… As Fuu left her small village behind and the open road stretched before her, she couldn't help breathing in that rush of freedom that came only with travel. It'd been awhile since she'd been on the road. Honestly, she was excited.

It was mid-afternoon when she arrived, but the day went sharply downhill. It turned out there was nothing fun at all about shopping in bulk on a limited budget, especially once people realized how much money she had stowed away in her satchel. It wasn't until late in the evening that she finally managed to negotiate a fair price for all the rice she needed.

"What's a girl supposed to do for fun around here?" Fuu complained aloud as the vendor weighed out sacks of rice grains. She'd come all this way and wouldn't leave without enjoying herself at least a little bit. She deserved it after all that hard work she did!

The vendor snickered in a way that made his whole mustache twitch. He paused between throwing the sacks onto the back of her cart and pointed behind her. "Whaddya ya think, girlie? Yer next to the red light district. Figger it out."

Ugh, gross. Fuu turned to look and saw this man had indeed set up shop just down the street from a brothel. What a pig. Three painted ladies stood at the bottom of a set of stairs that led up to a multi-story building with a red thatched roof, giggling at passersby and gesturing up at the glorified whorehouse.

"Don't call me girlie," she grumbled. "Isn't there anything else to do?"

He shrugged at her and tossed the last sack onto her cart. Sending the time had come to get moving, Naomi's horse snorted and gave the reigns a shake, prompting the vendor to pat her nose soothingly. "Not unless yer rich. An' I don't think yer rich since yeh swindled me outta all my rice."

"It's called negotiating," Fuu retorted, and pulled her horse's reigns till her nose was out of the vendor's reach.

"Feh," was all he said.

Fuu took her leave and reluctantly directed the horse toward the brothel. The street was so packed with pedestrians and milling carts, whose wheels stumbled on cobblestone potholes and whose drivers stopped and started as children darted between their horses legs, that there was no way she could go anywhere but forward through the throng. She hauled her own reigns back a foot as one small boy chased the rest of the gang right out in front of her, screaming all the way. It was impossible to tell whether they were fighting or playing. "Hey, watch out!" she scolded, "I nearly squished you!"

At the sudden cessation of movement, Momo wriggled out of his hidey hole beneath her seat where he had been slowly nibbling away at a ball of mochi for the majority of the road trip.

"It's alright, Momo," Fuu soothed, freeing one hand to scratch his fuzzy forehead. "Just a couple of rowdy kids." That was all. She sighed obnoxiously. The initial excitement about her journey to Edo had long worn off, and now she was only tired. She couldn't believe a couple of boys playing tag had been the most exciting thing to happen to her all day. "When did I get so freakin' boring?" she implored of her oldest friend.

But Momo's little ears perked and he pulled away, sniffing at the air. His attention was elsewhere.

"What's wrong?"

Momo squeaked, and Fuu turned sharply windward, struggling to keep hold on the reigns and locking her eyes on the towering brothel doors as the unmistakeable, heartstopping sound of a man shaking hands with death howled out from the depths of the building. The slow-moving traffic came to a grinding halt and the street filled with murmurs of caution. Until another death cry rose, strangled and wet, from just inside the doors. The murmurs burst into bubbles of panic; the foot-traffic collided with the carts in a sudden need to flee the vicinity. But the carts too were trying to move and so for a minute chaos erupted on the street. There was a mutual agreement in the crowd; whatever was going down was not something anyone wanted to stick around for.

Yet Fuu found herself steering her reigns toward the footsteps, muttering to herself as she went. "When did I get so stupid?"

The three painted ladies cowered at the edges of the steps, afraid to move in any direction. She began to shout to them, "What's going-"

But her brain stopped sending words to her mouth when she looked back up, to the yawning doorway, and saw him. There he was. In all his shining glory, clutching a frazzled woman to his side, hair blowing in the evening breeze like he'd been waiting all his life to jump out at her at this exact moment, dripping sword gleaming in the light of the lanterns like the last ray of sunset. There he was. Looking as untouchable as the day she'd last seen him so many months ago, _nearly a year ago._ Still looking as if someone had enchanted a statue to life. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

_"Jin?"_

.

.

Events had taken a turn for the sour. He'd jumped the gun this time and as he burst out the front door and saw the crowded street below he wondered if perhaps he wouldn't get away. But he had only just begun to worry when he heard it: something impossible. Everything else on the road went out of focus as he found the source of the impossible sound, sitting atop a cart directly at the bottom of the steps. For a split second he caught her eye. There was a solid moment of mutual_ 'Well how about that.'_

Hold on… did Fuu just wink?

He wasn't sure, but she followed that up by tossing a tiny gray object into the street. Jin was uncertain what she was doing until the tiny gray object scurried under the legs of a horse. The effect was instantaneous. The horse spooked and reared back, toppling a cart into a second horse. The street had already been in busy unrest, but now, all hell broke loose.

Jin took firm hold of Setsuko's hand and ran down the steps into the landslide of people to where, amongst the chaos, one lone cart stood perfectly still.

An hour out from the the outskirts of Edo, Jin emerged from beneath the sacks of rice, pulling Setsuko along with him into the frigid night air, feeling altogether like a damaged sack of rice himself.

"I think we're in the clear," Fuu called back to them over her shoulder. "Nobody followed us out of the city. I think Momo really threw them for a loop!"

Easing himself onto the burlap sacks, he found he had no words for this situation at all. "You have impeccable timing, as always." This was even more surprising than that day almost two years ago when the door opened to let in the dice-thrower, and instead who should stumble in but Fuu, looking even more confused by her presence than he. "Where are we going?"

Fuu only hummed to herself. He realized the reigns were resting on her lap and the horse was leading them all on its own. "The hideaway house, of course," she hummed, like it should have been obvious.

"Do criminals hide here often, then?" Jin wondered at her as she led the two of them up to her too-small cottage a few hours later.

"Like you wouldn't believe," she sighed. A mangy mutt on her mat stirred in its sleep, drawing Jin's attention. Fuu noticed as well. "Hey, off the bed!" she scolded, bodily shaking the dog awake. It barked but heeded her command, curling up instead in the corner by the door. Fuu could only grin. "I swear I locked the door. I don't know how he always manages to get in here! Please make yourselves at home," she went on as she began to fix a fire in the fireplace to ebb the chill that had settled in her absence. She cast her eyes at the canine in the corner and added, "Everyone else does."

Setsuko folded her hands in front of her, choosing to hover by the door near the dog. "Thank you for saving us," she ventured frankly. "I didn't catch your name."

"Where are my manners?" she responded brightly. "It's Fuu. And you are..?"

"Setsuko, at your service." Jin's companion tipped her head respectfully to Fuu, a gesture which Fuu returned more so, and with a radiant smile. But when she raised her head she fixed Jin with a look of such befuddlement that he knew he would be hearing about this later.

And hear he did. "What about _Shino?_" Fuu hissed under her breath the second Setsuko fell asleep, curled up on Fuu's mat under a layer of blankets. Grimacing in the flickering candlelight she managed to look quite formidable. "I thought you_ loved _her. After everything you went through for her, too. You men are all the same!"

Jin's eyebrow twitched. Did she really think him so callous? "Of course I have not forgotten Shino."

"And _another_ thing—what?"

"There is still some time left before I can retrieve Shino, you know that."

"I... Right, but—"

"All I've done is help a few other women out of unwanted contracts. Nothing more."

Fuu's fists flattened on her lap and she eagerly leaned forward. "Wait, you've been doing what? Is this what you've been doing with your time since then? Just how many women are we talking about here?"

Jin pondered that, sipping lightly on his tea. "For how many criminals is this place a hideaway?"

Her cheeks darkened and Fuu sat back against the wall. "Don't change the subject! This is serious," she insisted. "You're probably wanted, though that's nothing new. Not that I'm worried! I mean you're you, and all, so there's probably nothing to worry about. But you should be more careful," she scolded. He _hmmed_, which made her huff loudly. "And you can hide out here whenever you like, of course, given you haven't gotten yourself arrested."

"There's certainly enough bedding to go around," Jin remarked with some amusement. He cast his withering gaze at the pile in question, more like a nest than a bed, almost obscuring Setsuko's lean frame.

Fuu fumed. "You won't be mocking me when you've gotten a decent nights rest for once. Go on, take a few."

Jin lifted the corner of the one nearest him, slightly frayed and threaded through with flowers. The craftsmanship was shoddy at best but it was soft and well-loved. He wondered what on earth drove her need to own so many blankets. Certainly one was enough? For him, one was plenty. He pulled on the corner of the flowered fabric, but Fuu suddenly leaped from her repose and tore the blanket from his hands.

"Not that one," she squeaked. "Any other blanket. Not that one!"

Jin would have thought her reaction irrational, but on the corner of the blanket he had seen the logic behind her behavior. (How could he forget that symbol after it had been slathered in dripping ink all over their every belonging?) Hideaway house, indeed.


	8. Tacit Transactions

**.**

When they saw each other for the first time since they'd parted, it was as anticlimactic a meeting as when they had parted. If Fuu was there she would have been mumbling to herself about how stupid they were. The two of them locked eyes for a moment while townsfolk bustled past on their daily business. It was a testament to whatever it was they shared that neither bothered reaching for their sword.

"So..." Mugen offered, twitching like the silence was a mosquito crawling on his nose. "Kill any dudes lately?"

Jin pressed his fingertips together. Same old Mugen. "Yes, actually. You?" What pleasant pleasantries.

"Eh, one or two." He dug something out of his ear, then turned without a word and kept on toward the tea house he could smell around the corner.

They never said they were going in together or anything, never pretended they wanted to catch up or waste any time in the other's presence, yet they ended up side by side at the countertop anyway, ordering food in amiable silence.

**. . .**

**Tacit Transactions**

**. . .**

As he ate Jin wondered about the intention behind the character written on Fuu's blanket. He recalled his parting thoughts on Mugen, his private revelation that some piece within the rogue had permanently shifted. Now, however, the rogue looked about the same as he ever had. It was possible that whatever small change had wrought itself in Mugen had evaporated upon the return to his solitary travels. More than possible; it seemed likely. Hold on—

What was _this?_

As Mugen leaned over the counter to call the waitress back for more miso, something caught Jin's eye. Now that was new. In all the time they travelled together, Mugen had never carried anything on his person besides the occasional ryo, the clothes on his skin, and the sword on his back. That had changed, apparently, sometime between then and now. Alone it would be an ordinary unimposing object, but in its unfamiliarity in the otherwise familiar setting, its presence was striking.

Jin's curiosity overtook him. While Mugen was still turned away, Jin reached over and plucked the dingy folded paper from the sheath of Mugen's sword where it was tied with frayed string.

It fell open on the creases the way old papers do, ones that have been opened and closed so many times the folds become weak. He knew presently what he was looking at. The soft familiar face, the sunflowers... He'd forgotten the romanticized and crass painting of Fuu existed. And to find it here, of all places. Jin became aware of Mugen turning back to him, eyes prying on the paper he held, and he raised it up so Mugen could see exactly what Jin was looking at.

Jin and Mugen had never been men of many words with each other, and such was the case now. The major confrontation that happened over the next couple seconds took place via mercilessly eloquent facial expressions.

First there was Jin's witheringly cold accusation as he held the ukiyo-ê print aloft. _(What, pray tell, is the meaning of this?)_

And of course, Mugen's shock._ (Motherfucker. How the hell did you snatch that without me noticing?)_

Jin's unwavering glare._ (You animal.)_

Mugen's passive defensiveness. _(So I'm an animal. Tell me something we don't both already know, four eyes.)_

Jin's disgust as he curled his lip._ (Yes, you sure are, and I don't know what else I expected from you.)_

Mugen's hasty smirk. His flippant shrug._ (Shouldn't have expected anything, then.)_

Jin's decision and his lingering look of disgust as he refolded the paper and moved to tuck it in his sleeve._ (Better burnt to ashes than left with you.)_

Mugen's barstool screeching against the wooden floor and the shriek of grinding metal as his unsheathed sword found its way to Jin's throat.

Jin's hesitation.

Mugen's annoyance that Jin hadn't bothered to draw his sword at all. His defiance. His utter obliviousness to the rapt attention of the other patrons as he stood as Jin's potential executioner._ (You think just cause it's you I won't kill you over a piece of paper? You're pushing your luck.)_

Jin's continued hesitation, and now, his interest._ (I know you won't kill me, but I'm very interested in the fact that you'd bother with that old song and dance—over this.) _His carefully expressionless mask as he offered to Mugen the folded paper.

Mugen's impatient snarl as he snatched at the print before it could disappear again. _(Wipe that all-knowing look off your face or I'll cut it off and feed it to you.)_

Jin's one raised eyebrow as he held fast to the paper. _(What is it that you fear I know?)_

Mugen's steely determination as he tugged again, but not too hard. His granite expression that was so at odds with the gentle force he exerted on the ukiyo-ê print. _(Just let go already! Goddamn, do I have to spell it out for you?)_

Jin's dawning realization that Mugen was indeed scared of ripping it, and the surprised parting of his lips as he relinquished the paper to the agitated man beside him.

Mugen's furrowed brow and jutting lower jaw as he clutched the print tightly in his hand.

Jin's growing, light amusement as he surveyed the sight of Mugen clutching the paper. _(So.)_

Mugen's increasing discomfort. His hand slamming down on the table, Fuu's mostly obscured face underneath it. His eyes howling. _(So WHAT?)_

Jin's eyebrow, raised higher over his spectacles than it had ever been raised. (I think you know what.)

Mugen's furious dismissal as he turned away and loudly ordered another drink._ (Yeah, I know what.)_

When it arrived Mugen chugged his drink, slammed a couple coins on the table, and turned to leave without waiting for his second bowl of soup. Jin followed, though he wasn't sure what he was planning on saying. What was there to say? Jin pushed through the tapestry into the sunlight, ready to bid Mugen a reluctant farewell, but instead saw Mugen with his hand on his sword as he faced a half circle of armed men closing around the shop's entrance. There were at least twenty, maybe more.

"Cool," Mugen smirked, "the fights are coming to me now. Come at me, bastards!"

But the uniformed men held their ground, looking to the decorated one in the middle for orders. The man held up a hand to stay their advance, looking past Mugen toward Jin as he emerged from the shadows.

Jin drew up level with Mugen and addressed him quietly. "Put away your sword," he warned. "These men are here for me."

Mugen regarded him like he was spewing foam. "You lose your brain somewhere?" he spat. "No way I'm letting you have all the fun!"

"I will not be fighting them," Jin answered levelly. "There are many more where they come from."

"Lose your balls, too?" Mugen drawled. "Get your sword out, asshole, we can take 'em." He swung his sword wildly through the air in front of him in demonstration, and the men all raised their swords in unison.

"You still haven't learned how to pick your battles, I see," Jin snapped. "If we let them arrest me then you go free. If we fight, we will both be arrested or maybe killed."

"So _what_."

Jin hit him with the same skeptical look he'd given him in the tea house, then glanced somewhat pointedly at the print still crumpled in Mugen's other hand. "I think you know what."

Mugen's face grew hard and he looked at the twenty or so men, itching for the chance to fight them, desperate for the sound of swords clanging in the sun. Deja vu struck him as remembered the last time Jin stole a fight from him, on the shore by the lapping waves when he'd pulled the same fucking card. The one and only thing that meant more to him than a good fight. It pissed him off to no end that Jin knew his weaknesses well enough to exploit them and manipulate him. Mugen growled loudly and whipped his sword through the air one more time in contempt.

"Damn it," he yelled at Jin, "why's it always gotta be me looking after the runt? Try not to die, moron, I still gotta kill you later!"

Mugen was already stalking away down the street when Jin answered, far too softly for him to hear, already being cuffed roughly by a few of his arresters. "I'll do my best."


	9. Forgotten in the Forest

_**Author's note:**_

_Hey everyone! Yes this story is still alive! I was stuck on a bit of writer's block with this one for a couple months but I finally just cranked it out. Fuck it haha. Hope everyone who's been waiting all this time enjoys it. From here on out the story becomes a bit more cohesive and a bit less slice-of-life-y. But it'll still retain that connected yet separate feel that I've been going for. Basically what I'm saying is that the actual story line has picked up. This means the chapters may be getting longer. Idk, we'll see how it goes. _

_Don't forget that reviews remind me of my love for this story and motivate me to continue. ;)_

_Also disclaimer, more obscenities than usual in this chapter. Sorry. Hard to write his dialogue without swearing. It feels wrong not to..._

* * *

When Mugen was a kid no older than four he used to get up to no good with a couple other urchins his age in the scant woods uphill of the docks . They spent one dry summer day burning beetles, one by one as they crawled out of this little hole on a rotting log. The Ando brothers who owned the stretch of land came to scare them away, as they always did when they got back from fishing, and the kids hollered back obscenities at the adults but still scampered off. Mugen was the last out and for the rest of the day something crawled under his skin. He felt all… wrong. Like he'd messed something up real bad.

Somehow he got the idea in his head that it was the ghosts of the beetles he'd killed come back to haunt him. But it wasn't.

Later that night you could see the hill lit up red from the far side of the beach, could hear the seabirds crying the lullabies of the lost. The forest was burning down. It was then that he remembered. The other kids had taken their flaming sticks with them when they ran, but Mugen, he had thrown his at the Ando brothers to show them he wasn't scared of them. Back then he was too young to really understand that it was _his _fault the entire forest burned down, too young to either comprehend the guilt or deny it. But he wasn't too young to understand that he, and only he, could have seen that things turned out different. If he'd just held onto that stick.

Sixteen years later, Mugen stood in the middle of a secluded wood and stared down a beetle that was carrying a leaf away from a bush, thinking of the burnt woods on Ryukyu. Even the day he left some eight or nine years ago there'd still been charcoal under the layers of moss.

The bug tripped over a pebble and he watched it squirm belly-up. There was something disquieting about it all, like he'd forgotten something important all over again. Only, he was too old now to blame it on maimed beetle ghosts.

**. . .**

**Forgotten in the Forest**

**. . .**

_I think you know what._

Mugen hadn't stopped scowling since his run-in with Glasses. That jackass. That sleazing prick. That all-knowing, pig-loving, son of a fuck. _Jin._ That stupid look on his stupid impassive face when he'd said it. _I think you know what._

_Piss off!_ Mugen should have said then. _Fuck right back to hell._ Then they should have fought all those other assholes together. But instead Jin had poked his weak spot and like a sucker Mugen had caved. Because if they were both dead or thrown in jail, then who the shit was gonna look after Fuu?

Mugen deepened his scowl and flicked away the squirming beetle before traipsing away into the trees. What really pissed him off the most was that assumption in Jin's eyes, like he knew what Mugen was gonna say before he even said it. He just _hated _that. Moreover, he hated that Jin had been right. That fact alone had been driving him crazy ever since Jin's arrest. Why should Fuu have anything to do with his decisions at all? If he wanted to get himself killed fighting thirty guys at once then he should be able to. Right? It's not like they were goddamn married. He wasn't responsible for her anymore, and he wasn't responsible for Jin either for that matter. He wasn't responsible for anyone but himself.

But that didn't change what had happened, and there was that itching, wrong sensation under his skin still, like he had forgotten another burning stick in the forest. Every time he closed his eyes he wondered if Jin was dead or dying. And though he might deny it to himself in the twilight hours, when the sun rose and he had to pick which direction to walk that day he always chose one that brought him closer to Fuu.

. . .

The wind was growing cold again, and the days shorter. The roads were littered with dandelions the day that Mugen came for her, and they blew in behind him as he entered the shop with uncharacteristic hesitancy.

She turned to greet the new arrival and then lit up when she realized that not only was it Mugen, but that he had not shown up because he was bleeding out. (For once!) He seemed in good health, if a little more haggard than normal. When he saw her he slumped over and put away his sword, looking nothing short of relieved. Fuu excused herself from the old couple she was chatting with and beelined toward him.

He hit her with an intense and unreadable look. "Kinda thought you were dead. Or something."

Fuu slapped both hands to her cheeks as she realized he must have been to her house before coming here. "You saw my place?"

His eyebrow twitched, and his fingers drummed on his sword hilt as he sized up the thin crowd of customers. "Who do I gotta kill? Point him out, girlie."

Fuu shook her head, instead calling out to Jun, who was watching them both discreetly from the other side of the counter while she sliced fruit. "Can you hold down the fort without me? Mugen's here."

Jun tsked, but she was smiling. She waved them off dismissively. "Yeah, yeah. Go have fun with your scarecrow."

Mugen set his jaw as he listened to Fuu's tale. The road that meandered back to her house was short, and she hadn't even finished telling him everything before they had arrived. The two small windows had been shattered, and the door wouldn't close properly anymore after it had been kicked in that night two weeks ago. The attack had been such a surprise. If it hadn't been for her dog waking her and growling the warning that there were strangers approaching on the path, she could have been arrested, tortured, kidnapped, killed… it was up in the air since she hadn't been caught.

"What did they want?"

Of that, she wasn't sure. Fuu stopped at the doorway, watching Mugen as he poked through her scattered belongings and smashed dishes with the tip of his sword. She tried to explain about Jin's latest exploits and her suspicion that her attackers had been looking for him, but stopped when Mugen shoved past her back out into the dying light. "That moron. No wonder he got arrested."

It felt like somebody had ripped all the air from her chest. "Arrested?" she squeaked, then found her voice and screeched at Mugen with all the power in her body. "_Arrested? _How do you know he got arrested?"

"Cause I was there. Who the hell is this?"

"You…" Fuu followed him around the corner and sighed. He'd caught sight of the little gravemarker there against the side of the house. The soil there was still fresh, as were the flowers spread around the soft ground. Almost everyone in the village had stopped by to leave a flower or two. "My dog." She drew her arms tightly around her chest and willed herself not to cry. This wound was still very raw. "After he woke me and I heard them coming, I climbed into the rafters to hide. There were maybe six or seven of them and I really had no hope of running away, so I just hid. But the dog wouldn't stop barking at them as they tore my place apart. One of them kicked him too hard and he just… didn't get up. He was an old dog."

Fuu knelt down to brush some of the stray dandelion seeds off the stone, where she had painted a single kanji. The dog didn't have a name. She had loved him dearly but he was still wild at heart, and since he never truly belonged to her it would have felt wrong to name him. So on his gravemarker she simply put 'dog.' It was honest.

"I can't believe fishface led those goons right to your house."

Fuu rose. "I doubt he knew he was being tracked."

"Well what did he expect? What did _you _expect?"

"I don't know. Not this." She was still reeling at the news and couldn't quite believe it was true. "Are you sure he was arrested? If you were there why didn't you _do_ anything?"

Mugen growled. "I ain't his babysitter."

Fuu hardly noticed as she trampled a few flowers underfoot advancing on him. "So you just sat there while they marched him away? How could you?"

"Look, there were two dozen of 'em, okay? Old four eyes must've really pissed someone off."

Fuu simmered down, forcing herself to breathe slowly and not jump to blame. Of course Mugen wouldn't have turned down a fight like that unless there had been no chance of winning. It wasn't his fault. That didn't make it easier though. "What are we gonna do?"

Mugen screwed his face up like she'd thrown a handful of bees at him. "What? I ain't doin' _nothin' _about it."

Flabbergasted at his selfishness, Fuu stared at him with her mouth hanging wide open, trying to decide how best to murder him. Finally she settled on slapping him instead. But Mugen caught her wrist before she made contact and she was so furious that she stomped on his foot, all the while shouting, "Yes. You. Are."

He hissed and released her wrist then, so of course she slapped him. It connected hard. He shoved her away with a flat "Fuck you!" and she tripped against the side of the house but bounced right back to shove him with equal force, eyes blazing with fury to throw his words back in his face.

"Fuck _you! _You are helping me free Jin if I have to cut off your legs and carry you there myself!"

Mugen's lip curled and he ripped out his sword to point it at her. "Don't tell me what to do, bitch."

This only fueled the fire. She pushed the blade out of her way with the back of her hand. "Listen here, Mugen. I don't care what you guys say about hating each other. The truth of the matter is that we are each other's' only family and Jin would never let you rot in a jail cell if he could help it. He needs us! He needs _you._"

Mugen snorted. "You are kidding yourself if you think he would help bust me out of jail. Sentimental bullshit."

Fuu wanted to scream. "Why are you _here_ then, Mugen? Why did you even come back here? Just to tell me Jin got arrested and rub it in my face? Did you like it? Does it make you happy that he could be tortured or put to death for his crimes?"

"No!" Mugen backed up after barking that at her, and for once seemed to be thinking carefully over his words.

A cricket took up a song somewhere underneath the house. The last light of the sun carved canyons between them in the flowers and the grass. Fuu paused for a very long moment.

"No what?"

He didn't answer her. The dark came quickly, and with it a couple of fireflies. Mugen stared into the west where the sun had so recently vanished, hands jammed in his pockets, eyes a thousand miles away. Maybe she was only projecting, but Fuu couldn't help but think that he looked terribly lost and confused. The longer the silence dragged on, the more her anger ebbed, and she allowed herself to imagine for a moment that Mugen was just as messed up over Jin's fate as she was. Maybe he came here because he didn't know what else to do.

She softened her voice when she spoke up again. "He needs us, Mugen."

Still, it was a few more minutes before he emerged from his long silence. It happened with a protracted, irritated sigh, and a muttered, "Shit."

That was all it took. Fuu latched on before he had a chance to second guess himself. "Of course, we shouldn't leave until morning. That's just smart traveling. That way I'll have time to pack all my things and we canㅡwhat are you doing?" She blinked at Mugen, who was standing at the threshold to the house with one foot inside.

He glared at her. "What's it look like? Going to bed."

"Oh. I actually haven't slept here since the break-in. I've been staying with a friend from the shop."

Mugen rolled his eyes and went ahead into the house. "I'm tired. This place is fine. They ain't comin' back here if they already found their guy."

Fuu lingered at the entrance, unable to fully dispel the anxiety that being in this house awakened in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't been here much at all since that night. But Mugen was right. Those guys probably wouldn't be back. And even if they did come, well, Mugen was here now and he'd put up a far nastier fight than her little stray dog had.

"Don't ever point that sword at me again." She kicked her shoes toward him and tried vainly to get the broken door to shut all the way.

Mugen flopped down onto the mangled pile of blankets in the corner of the room. "Why? Scared I'll gut you if you slap me again?"

Fuu flushed, but didn't apologize. He'd deserved that. He didn't seem to be expecting an apology, though, and rolled over to face the wall when she tiptoed over to demand a portion of the blankets. She stretched out next to him, sure to leave a healthy amount of distance. It wasn't the first time they'd shared this sleeping space, but it was definitely the first time she'd slapped him and she wasn't so eager to brush elbows afterward. Just when she'd almost drifted off, he pulled a stone from his pocket and started sharpening his sword on it artlessly. The sound was horrible and echoed off every nook and cranny in the tiny cabin. _Krrt, rtch. Krrt, rtch. _She was about to tell him off when he surprised her.

"We should probably start by tracking down some of these women he supposedly rescued." _Krrt, rtch._ When Fuu didn't answer right away he threw her an irritated glance. "I don't know who picked him up. From what you said about his dumb heroics, it was probably some kinda private army, depending on who owned the places Jin screwed over. We gotta find out who did it before we can figure out where they took him. The chicks might know something, considering they were a part of the business at one point."

Fuu nodded. It really sounded like he'd thought about this before.

"The woman he brought here… I don't know where he took her but I know which brothel he rescued her from. We might start there. Try and figure out if she has family Jin could have taken her to."

_Krrt, rtch._ Mugen pocketed the stone and closed his eyes without so much as a 'goodnight.'

Fuu lay awake for a long while thinking about the look in Mugen's eyes as he'd glared down the sunset, and decided that some part of him must have resolved to go after Jin before he ever came here. It was the only thing that added up. Why else would he have come? He was looking for her to kick his ass into gear, that's why. Before she fell asleep she leaned over and shifted Mugen's sword from his chest to the floor so he wouldn't impale himself as he tossed in his sleep. For some reason she thought of Hiro, the little boy Mugen had taken under his wing months ago, and the way he had marvelled at Fuu's amazing ability to scream at Mugen and come out unscathed. Fuu almost laughed recalling the sparkle in Hiro's eye.

Perhaps he was rougher around the edges than most, but Mugen had the heart of a good man. Hiro had known that. Fuu knew that. She just wasn't sure that Mugen knew it yet.


	10. Resting Refrain (Part II)

aww yeahh it's a flashback chapter what up

* * *

As the years stretched on, Jin forgot the faces of many of his fellow students. He'd never been very good with faces anyhow. Instead when he thought of the young men he studied alongside he recalled them each by their defining characteristics. Lately the crime of slaying his master had been less heavy on his shoulders, the eyes in his memory less accusative, and he had found himself thinking of his days in the dojo altogether less often. But without fail, whenever the trio lit their nightly fire he would always think of Kazue the poet. The boy was one of the younger students and had never been particularly skilled with his sword. Instead, though the others sometimes made fun at his expense, Kazue had taken an intense pleasure with words and would recite his poetry to anyone that would listen. Jin's silence must have been mistaken for appreciation, because he was subjected to them often.

Jin thought of that boy now as he watched Fuu stoke the coals at the base of the growing flames. They'd taken up temporary residence outside the modest island home of the sunflower samuraiㅡfor obvious reasons Fuu had decided not to bring her two injured bodyguards inside until the body of her father had been laid to rest. Across the fire Jin could see Mugen's limp but distinguishable form. If it hadn't been for the unsteady rise and fall of his chest, Jin would have considered him dead for all the blood staining his clothes and skin. He wondered if he himself also looked that pathetic.

Fuu reeked of exhaustion and emotion as she visibly struggled to keep the fire lit. As prolific as she was attending to their injuries, she'd never been very accomplished at tending fires.

Jin closed his eyes once more. Death still lingered around the corner and it was only through sheer willpower that he was fending off unconsciousness. In his head he recited the only poem of Kazue's that had stuck with him all these years, observing the orange flicker of the flames through his eyelids.

_people live like fire_

_dancing, breathing, consuming_

_coming, going, gone_

**. . .**

**Resting Refrain (Part II)**

**. . .**

Try as he might, Jin could not fight the darkness as it slipped a hood over his head.

Many images plagued his dreams that night. The cold sword of death pierced his stomach again and again, and like lead he dropped from the dock into the ocean, salt stinging his wounds as he sank into the depths. He killed his master, and pressed a hand to the wound to try and stop the bleeding but it was too late and his master cried out. _Betrayal. Failure._ He was already dead yet still he spoke, the words clawing his insides with nails of fire. Beside his master's corpse Mugen lay bleeding on a beach. Bird calls and gunfire. The sun smelted the shadows of the crows onto the cliffside, and Fuu screamed soundlessly at those that settled on the sand, singing of death. He thought for a moment that she was really going to jump. A death of honor for a death of sacrifice. The cold sword of death pierced his stomach again, and again, and again before he woke.

Fuu had a cold, wet cloth pressed to his forehead. "Jin, you have to stop thrashing," she was saying. "Your wounds haven't closed yet and you're making them worse. Please. Please, if you can hear me…"

Jin worked his eyes open. The lids were so much heavier than normal. "Fuu…?" He felt very confused and could not decide what had truly happened and what had been a dream.

Her face swam into focus. She looked ready to faint. "Jin! You're awake! Oh thank god."

'Awake' felt like a strong word. The sky was a haze of purple and he couldn't tell if the sun was rising or setting. "How long?"

It took her a moment to process his question. She squeezed the rag into a bucket and rewetted it with fresh water. "Oh. You've been out for about two days I guess. Your fever's almost broken, though. You're really doing a lot better!"

Jin nodded once, painfully. "Mugen?"

Fuu smiled, but it was almost a grimace. "He's… alright." She glanced across the fire to where Mugen lay sprawled on a blanket, more or less in the same spot that Jin had last seen him. "That is, he will be. And so will you. I guess it takes more than storms to tear down mountains."

Two days. Jin _hmmed _quietly to himself as he tried to assess his wounds without moving. His entire body felt like liquid iron in a furnace. When the sword had cut him and he had gone down, Jin had accepted his death with dignity and grace. He'd never expected to live after that.

Of course, Fuu always managed to surprise him.

Jin was in and out for a couple more days. He dreamed in patches between great stretches of gray fog and vivid painful moments of consciousness. The blazing fire in his chest dominated his thoughts at all times and Kazue sat at the edge of many of his dreams, reciting his favorite haiku.

_People live like fire, _he would say as Jin transitioned back and forth between the real world and that of nightmares.

He had never told Kazue but he had always found insight in that particular poem during his time at the dojo. People did indeed behave like fire, coming and going on unforeseeable whims, providing life and snatching it away. He himself often felt a bit like fire. A kind of steady-burning gas flame. His energy was perpetual and renewable and he fought to keep himself reliable in form, as unwavering as a rock, and as long as he had kerosene to burn then he knew his flame would never go out.

Of course, that had been the arrogance of youth. To think himself faultless and immortal… It had been nothing short of foolish to think of himself that way. He had abandoned this notion entirely after the death of his master, and hadn't thought about the haiku again until the day he met Mugen.

If Jin was a gas flame then Mugen was a bonfire, and bonfires only ever ended in one of two ways. The moment Jin laid his eyes on the stray Ryukyuan he had known it, that this fire burned so hotly that it would either burn itself out and die young, or else bring down the entire forest with it. Although… in the end, it was both of them that burned down Fuu's tea shop. So his judgement on Mugen hadn't made Jin any better of a man.

At one point when Jin awoke, Mugen was sitting up by the fire. The sun was shining from behind a low-hanging layer of clouds, and seabirds were flocking toward the sea. It was good to know for sure that he wasn't dead. Soon Fuu emerged from the back of the house with a shovel in hand and threw it to the ground when she saw him.

"Mugen! You shouldn't be sitting up like that!"

Mugen shrugged her off, wincing. "Let me be."

An intense pout came over her then and she settled her fists on her hips. "I just barely got your bullet wounds to close, you idiot, you're going to ruin your stitches."

"What about yours, huh?"

Fuu froze, leaning away. "What do you mean?"

Mugen ogled her from his hunched over position, lazily pointing at her chest. "You're the one limpin' around, shovelin' dirt with broken ribs. So don't tell me what to do."

With one arm draped protectively over her ribcage, Fuu scowled. "It's not the same."

Mugen went back to prodding the fire, sending a couple stray sparks skyward. "Sure it ain't."

At this point Fuu screwed up her face at him and mouthed a couple unreadable words, before finally noticing that Jin was awake. For some reason this helped her calm down. She rolled her eyes, gesturing at Mugen as if to say "_Can you believe this jerk?"_

Jin could, in fact, believe it.

Then she knelt next to Mugen, placing a forceful hand on his shoulder. "Look," she ground out, "I can handle the fire by myself. _Please _lay back down."

Mugen growled and threw his stick into the fire. "I'm bored," he grumbled. "I'm sick of sleeping. Why don't _you _sleep and I'll take my shift telling everyone what to do all the damn time." But he was still weak, and succumbed quickly to her pushing.

"I'll sleep when you guys are better," she snapped back as she guided him back to a prone position on the mat.

Jin watched her carefully as she arranged a couple of fish over the fire. Dirt was caked around her fingernails. He wondered if she had just returned from burying her father. Now that he noticed, she did seem to be favoring her left side, and cringed whenever she had to bend over. He felt foolish for not realizing sooner how badly she'd been injured. He was only partly aware of what had happened here on the island before his arrivalㅡmost of what had transpired between Fuu and Mugen and the three vengeful brothers was as yet a mystery to him.

"Have you slept at all?" Jin asked her.

Fuu flipped the first fish and looked his way. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and a mottled bruise on her right cheekbone. "Somewhat," she answered at length. "I've been a little busy, you know, between the two of you."

Mugen grumbled again on the other side of her. "Coulda just let us die."

"Shut up Mugen." She flipped the third fish a little too hard and almost dropped it in the fire.

So much had happened between the fire in the tea shop and this fire on the island. It struck him that they would probably be parting ways soon after he and Mugen had finished healing. It was strange that this thought saddened him. He hadn't expected to feel sorrow.

That night Fuu moved the men inside the small hut where her father had lived his final days. She helped them one at a time stumble inside, one arm draped around her shoulder. Jin bore the short journey in terse, strained silence. Mugen swore all the way.

She left them then for an hour or so and returned with fresh water. She brought them each a bit to drink. Jin thanked her with a nod, but Mugen grabbed her wrist, spilling the water everywhere. "Will you go to fucking sleep already?"

Dripping water and astonishment, Fuu ripped her hand away. "Are you insane? I can't."

"Yeah. You can. Will you tell her, four eyes? Dumb broad won't listen to me."

Jin was surprised to be dragged into the argument, and resolved to let them work it out themselves. He simply pushed his glasses up his nose and sipped his water.

Grumbling loudly at Jin, Mugen scratched at his bandages, which earned another indignant response from Fuu. "Would you calm down?" he barked. "We ain't dyin' anymore. Shut your freakin' eyes and go to sleep. You look like you're gonna fall over."

"But…" she glanced at the door, which still stood half ajar. "What if you… or what if...?"

Mugen blinked at her, unimpressed. "Good point."

Fuu threw the empty cup at him.

It was time for Jin to intercede. "If you're worried about our wounds, then we'll keep watch on each other while you rest. Would that be alright? We'll wake you if you're needed."

Fuu glanced between them, first at Jin's stony face and then at Mugen's rugged one. "I suppose that'd be alright," she admitted. "I _am _very tired."

She spread out a blanket in between the two men and laid herself down gingerly, still clutching her ribs. Jin hoped she had at least tried to tend to that amidst her watch over the two of them. She must have been understating her exhaustion, because it took less than a minute before her labored breathing evened out into the telltale pattern of sleep.

"Fuckin' finally," Mugen grumbled. "She gets so uptight when she hasn't slept."

Jin did not honor that accusation with a reply. Instead he voiced the concern that had been plaguing him all day. "Mugen. Tell me what happened to Fuu. How did she come by those injuries?" He didn't say what he was really thinking, but his icy tone managed to convey it well enough. _You were supposed to protect her. I sent you in my place._

Mugen shot Jin a nasty glare. "How d'you think? The shitheads roughed her up before I got there." He afforded Fuu a quick, angry glance, and after a second he ruffed up his matted hair and flopped back down on his mat. "They knew me. Wanted revenge for something I did, took a little bit of it from her."

On cue, they both looked at the girl sleeping between them. Fuu face was peaceful in sleep, and she seemed far less troubled than she had been these past few days. A horrifying thought struck Jin. He frowned intensely. "You don't think they…"

The question went unfinished, but Mugen seemed to catch his drift because his scowl also deepened. "Fuck if I know."

In her sleep Fuu began to fret, and didn't settle down for another hour. Jin thought about waking her, but knew she desperately needed the rest. So he didn't. When her nightmares finally abated, Mugen stopped rapping his empty cup on the cottage wall and rolled onto his side.

"Hey… Jin."

This alone got Jin's full attention. He wasn't entirely certain that Mugen had ever used his actual name before. For this occasion Jin managed to sit up, sure that whatever Mugen was about to say was important.

But Mugen didn't seem to notice Jin's rapt attention. He was rolling his cup between his hand and the floorboards. "You think she'll be alright on her own?"

_People live like fire, _Jin thought. _Coming, going, gone._ It was true that soon both Mugen and Fuu would be gone from his life, and he had come to accept this long ago. But Mugen was not the bonfire that Jin had judged him for a year ago when they'd met. He'd thought then that Mugen would without a doubt bring about his own destruction. But he was sure now, as Mugen posed that loaded question, that Fuu was the only one with the power to truly break him.

Jin considered the question with great thought. Mugen eventually grumbled his disinterest and turned back toward the wall to continue his staring contest with it. But Jin was still thinking about Mugen's question. Would she be alright without the two of them?

Jin had always considered that if he was a gas flame and Mugen was a bonfire, then Fuu would be a candle. She'd always been delicate to him. Fragile. So often in their travels they'd had to save her from one fate or another, always with the unspoken fear that they would arrive too late. Always the fear that her flame would be snuffed out. She was so easy to break that it wouldn't take much. Perhaps just a passing wind. There would be only smoke where she had once stood.

But he had been wrong about that as well. He'd been wrong about so many things, but in his judgement of Fuu he had been the most wrong. He saw now that she was not fragile at all; if anything she burned brighter than either of her two companions. The girl who had once spoken so softly of the smell of sunflowers on a samurai's robe had buried that same man today, all on her own, and Jin knew now that Fuu was no mere candle.

"Yes," Jin said, prompting Mugen to glance at him over his shoulder. "To your question." It must have been two hours since Mugen asked it, but Jin had at last settled on his answer. "I think Fuu will be just fine."


End file.
